Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Swiss Sanatoria (Patients)

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Health how many British patients are now being treated for tuberculosis in Swiss sanatoria under the National Health Scheme.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): One hundred and forty from England and Wales.

Mr. Williams: In view of the unqualified success of the scheme and the comparatively small cost involved, and in order to prevent the spreading of the infection in this country, will my right hon. Friend consider sending more patients to Switzerland?

Mr. Macleod: We review the scheme from year to year, and it is due for review in September. The main reason for the scheme was the long waiting lists in this country, but they have been very dramatically reduced in recent years, so

much so that from time to time now it is almost difficult to take up the present allocation.

Personal Cases

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health what progress has been made in finding a suitable home for Michael Daniels, aged 7 years, an epileptic needing constant supervision, in view of the medical testimony of the danger to his brother of two years of age and the strain on the parents.

Mr. Iain Macleod: As the hon. Member knows, this boy has high priority for admission, but I am afraid there is no immediate vacancy.

Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that this boy is a mental defective of a vicious type and has tried to choke the young baby, that the young child is in a very serious state and that the mother and father are losing their health? Is it not a terrible position if the right hon. Gentleman cannot find a place for a boy of this type before real tragedy occurs in his home?

Mr. Macleod: I wrote to the hon. Gentleman about the case a couple of weeks ago. He knows the priority that this case has. It is one of 17 in the most urgent category of all. The board knows—it has again been brought to its attention—how urgent the case is. I am certain that the board knows the priority and will do its best.

Mr. Dodds: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give the mother and father a little hope as to whether it will be one month, two months or three months?

Mr. Macleod: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the question of which child is to be put at the top of the list must be decided on medical priorities by the board and not by interchange between hon. Members in this manner. All I can do is to make absolutely certain that the board knows the priority that the child has, and the reply which I have given to the hon. Member indicates that.

Mr. Boardman: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that 12-year-old Brian McCaul, of Leigh, Lancashire, concerning whose case there has been protracted correspondence, has been waiting half of his lifetime for admission to hospital despite a top priority; and if he will give an assurance of admission in the immediate future.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am well aware of this sad case but regret that the shortage of accommodation for this kind of patient makes it impossible to promise admission to a suitable institution in the immediate future.

Mr. Boardman: In view of the fact that despite his high priority this boy has been waiting six years, can the Minister say how many of these tragic Brian McCauls there are awaiting beds throughout the country? Will he try to arrange additional accommodation in the various regions?

Mr. Macleod: On the second point, as I am sure the hon. Member knows, we are doing a very great deal and in the Liverpool and Manchester regions, which share their accommodation for this purpose, 250 extra beds will be provided in the next two years, quite apart from Greaves Hall, which is going to provide 1,000 beds, of which 300 are for children.
On the question of the total waiting lists in the country, I have given the figures on many occasions, as the hon. Member will see from the OFFICIAL REPORT. However, if he would like the up-to-date figures, he should put down another Question.

Mr. Boardman: Will the Minister bear in mind that cases of this description, which completely wear out the parents, bring disaster to the family? It is not just the boy who is concerned.

Mr. Macleod: I know that. It is one of the reasons I have consistently tried since I became Minister to give priority to mental health.

Farms

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Health the number of farms, formerly run by hospitals, which have been sold or leased within the last two years; what is the total acreage involved; and what proportion of the total is represented by farms formerly run by mental hospitals and mental deficiency institutions.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Three hospital farms, having a total area of 209 acres, have been sold since 1st February, 1953, one of which with 83 acres was at a mental hospital. No information is available about the number of farms leased.

Mr. Collins: In considering the matter further and developing his policy on the subject, will the Minister have special regard to the position of mental hospitals, not merely because of the occupational therapy involved, which can be overstated, but because of the permanent need in most cases to keep a sort of green belt around mental hospitals?

Mr. Macleod: I will certainly consider the suggestion. The main decisions following on the circular of last year have not yet been taken. The information from the various regions concerned has now been received by my Department.

Mr. G. Williams: Is costing carried out on the farms, and has not my right hon. Friend found that in the past the cost of production has been exorbitant? Will he try to get rid of all farms kept by hospitals and mental homes?

Mr. Macleod: The costing has not been adequate in previous years, but a different system has now been introduced and I hope that it will take care of the matter. It is true that in many cases there has been a substantial loss to the Health Service under this heading. It was with that in mind that I sent out the circular of a year ago, but I have no intention, of course, of closing down all farms and gardens.

Mr. Collins: Will the Minister make it clear that, although there have been some losses, there are many hospital farms which have been very efficiently run and that a great deal of good voluntary service has been put into them?

Mr. Macleod: That is true, but it is not the whole point. Apart from anything else, I am not authorised by the


National Health Service Acts to farm. That is one of the main difficulties. I can farm only if the work definitely has therapeutic value for the patients.

Nurses (Recruitment)

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Health in how many regions the recruitment of nurses has been suspended or reduced because of the instruction to hospital management committees that recruitment of nursing staff up to approved establishment can only be made on condition that the salaries of staff so recruited can be met from the approved estimates.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Full information is not available, but it is obvious that improvements and developments, including increases in staff, can only be made if the cost can be met within the allocations.

Mr. Collins: Does that mean that when the Minister reviews his estimates for next year he will allow for increases in staff, particularly in those hospitals which are at present admittedly understaffed?

Mr. Macleod: Yes. One of the main items in the new moneys for which the different authorities have asked is, of course, their expectation of increasing the numbers of staff available to them.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Health, in view of the shortage of nurses and student nurses, what further steps have been taken to increase recruitment, particularly for mental nursing, both from English and also from colonial girls; and, in view of the disproportionate number of nurses and student nurses in traditional London teaching hospitals, what action he is taking to divert their services to other hospitals where a shortage exists.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The action taken both by my right hon. Friend and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service to increase the recruitment of nurses and improve the staffing of mental hospitals, where the shortage is mainly to be found, covers too wide a field to be dealt with in the limits of a Parliamentary answer. But among other matters he has it in mind to invite the teaching hospitals to consider with him whether more might not be done to second student nurses to mental hospitals as part of their training.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the hon. Lady agree that it seems scandalous that many of the traditional teaching hospitals in London are overstaffed compared with many hospitals around London, where there is very grave understaffing? Could not the Department try to transfer some from the overstaffed hospitals to the understaffed hospitals, and vice versa?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: A certain amount has been done by the standstill of establishments with just that result. There is an improvement, but not in the mental hospitals. That method has helped the other hospitals. It is fair to say thatthe staffing figures for the general and teaching hospitals are not wholly comparable with the others.

Cancer Registration

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health if he will now make a statement giving the results of his circular to hospitals concerningthe registration of cases of cancer; and how the number of cases for 1954 compares with the preceding years since 1950.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Complete figures showing the number of cases of suspected cancer registered in 1954 will not be available before the middle of 1955. The hon. Member will no doubt bear in mind that these figures will not fully reflect the action taken in response to the circular which was issued during the period to which they relate.

Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that his series of answers on this question are very conflicting? Can he not recall that on 18th March he said that he was expecting that a circular which had been sent out would be back by 30th June, when it was anticipated that there would be 58,000 cases? That was 30th June, 1954. Can he not now give further figures that will correspond with what he anticipated?

Mr. Macleod: The cases to which the hon. Gentleman refers were suspected cases for 1953. I can give him the figures if he likes to put down a Question. The answer I gave on 6th December was to say that it would be a few months yet before we had the final figures and that I would let him know at once so that he could ask a Question. I will still do so.

Beds (Maintenance Costs)

Mr. Page: asked the Minister of Health the average cost of maintenance of a general bed and a maternity bed, respectively, in National Health Service hospitals.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The average weekly cost of maintaining a patient in non-teaching general hospitals in England and Wales in 1953–54 was £15 15s. 5d.: and in non-teaching maternity hospitals £18 0s. 5d. For teaching general hospitals the costs were £25 4s. 2d. in London and £19 2s. 9d. in the provinces; and for teaching maternity hospitals £22 10s.

Mr. Page: Are not these figures very much higher than the fees paid by the regional hospital boards to private nursing homes and other institutions outside the National Health Service where there are contractual arrangements with those institutions? Will he not encourage such contractual arrangements with institutions outside the Service?

Mr. Macleod: The figures may be higher but, of course, they are not comparable. The care given in nursing homes and the range of service provided are very different from what is given in a big hospital.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen, among other things, the extraordinary variation in the cost of food per patient in different hospitals? For example, is there any reason why it should cost £3 2s. l0d. to keep a patient in food for a week at Guy's and £4 8s. in St. George's Hospital, when both are in London?

Mr. Macleod: That is one of the reasons I and my predecessors have encouraged the provision of adequate costing returns, which are now coming out, so that these comparisons can be brought out and studied.

St. Thomas's Hospital (Water Flushing Valves)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Minister of Health why he permits flushing valves to be used at St. Thomas's Hospital, contrary to the regulations of the Metropolitan Water Board.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am ready to ask the hospital board to replace any of these valves that contravene the relevant byelaw.

Mr. Warbey: Will the Minister confirm that these flushing valves arethoroughly efficient devices? Can he say what steps his Department can take to protect private citizens who are threatened with withdrawal of their water supplies by the Metropolitan Water Board if they do not replace the valves by cisterns?

Mr. Macleod: I am not sure that I do not have a personal interest in this, because the Metropolitan Water Board discovered that I have one of these in my house. Officials asked me to remove it. I did. I am a law-abiding citizen and a law-abiding Minister. This byelaw exists, and in the hospitals I must do my best to carry it out.

Ambulances, Staffordshire (Radio-Telephones)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Health how soon he expects to be able to approve the plan to install radio-telephone equipment in the ambulances of the Staffordshire Health Authority.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The authority has not yet submitted its revised proposals.

Mr. Swingler: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say why there is such a great delay and dispute over this matter in view of the greater efficiency and probably greater economy that would be achieved by this improvement of installing radio-telephone devices in the county ambulances? Can she say why so many weeks and even months have passed before some agreed plan could be made?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Staffordshire is divided into nine areas for administering this local health authority service, and the original proposal involved superimposing the system on those nine separate areas. A deputation was received by the Minister and the whole matter gone into by experts on 21st January, when it was recommended that a four-centre system rather than a nine-centre system would be more applicable. As far as I am aware the deputation appeared to accept that, and we are now waiting its revised proposals. There will be no loss of time when we have received them.

Psychiatric Social Workers

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health how many psychiatric social workers are employed by hospital


authorities in England and Wales, and how many by local health authorities; if he is satisfied that those numbers are adequate; and what steps he is taking to encourage the training of more psychiatric social workers.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Figures for 1954 are not yet available, but in 1953 the number employed by hospital authorities was 280 full-time and 36 part-time; and by local authorities approximately 140 full-time and 13 part-time. The supply falls short of needs, and special grants are available for students.

Mr. Robinson: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the psychiatric social worker is an essential link in any comprehensive mental hospital service, and will not he further agree that the numbers will never be adequate until the salary scales are substantially revised and until additional training facilities are provided?

Mr. Macleod: I agree that they are most important workers. On the question of salaries, there is at the moment a claim before the Whitley Council.

Expenditure, West Midlands

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Health what proportion of the increased expenditure on hospital accommodation which he recently announced will be spent in the West Midlands; and what plans for improved hospital accommodation for North Staffordshire are contemplated.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Until I have received and considered the proposals of all hospital boards, I cannot say how much of the new programme will be devoted to any particular area.

Mr. Swingler: Is the right hon. Gentleman bearing in mind the prime importance of the West Midlands or, in particular, North Staffordshire, in the economy of the country, and will he indicate that an adequate proportion of the increased expenditure which is very much needed in the great industrial area of the West Midlands will go to that area? Will the right hon. Gentlemanmake an announcement shortly about that?

Mr. Macleod: I will give the full information to the House as soon as I have got the details and allotted the necessary

priorities for all areas. Of course I understand the importance of the area to which the hon. Member refers. There are many other areas of great importance, too, and we must do as best we may to balance their conflicting claims.

Mental Hospitals, Dartford (Food Expenditure)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health if he will arrange for an investigation to be held to ascertain the extent to which expenditure in respect of food for patients and staff in mental hospitals in the Dartford district enables adequate and suitably varied diets to be provided.

Mr. Iain Macleod: One of my catering advisers visited two of the hospitals concerned last year, and the third has recently been investigated by the catering adviser to the regional hospital board.

Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that, when I asked Questions before, he mentioned the 26s. per patient allowed in general hospitals but could not give any figure for the mental hospitals? Is he aware that there is deep concern that in the mental hospitals in the Dartford area the food is totally inadequate for people sick in mind but healthy in body? Can the hon. Member for Dartford be allowed to see some of the meals without his visit being announced in advance?

Mr. Macleod: I should be very ready to help the hon. Member on the last point. Perhaps we can have a word about that. So far as the amounts in the mental hospitals are concerned, it is because the board was concerned at the low charge in the Bexley Hospital that it ordered the most recent inquiry which is taking place this week, and to which I have referred. There are special reasons why the cost per patient—the cost per head, because it includes the staff as well—is very much lower than in other hospitals, the two main ones being the very large number of patients and the relative absence of special diets.

Chronic Sick, Rugby

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the concern in Rugby over the shortage of hospital accommodation for the chronic sick; and what steps he is taking to remedy this deficiency.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I understand that this matter was raised with the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board recently, and that they are considering it.

Mr. Johnson: While bearing in mind the difficulties of the hospital board in this connection, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that the public health committee has almost got to the end of its tether in this matter, which is causing a lot of domestic unhappiness and distress in the borough? Will he use his good offices and give the hospital board special dispensation to build accommodation in the town?

Mr. Macleod: I have seen the letter from the town clerk of Rugby to which, I think, the hon. Member is referring. It has gone to the regional hospital board, and the board must be the judge of what priority it assigns to any particular claim.

Children's Hospital, Paddington (Use)

Mr. Tomney: asked the Minister of Health why the Board of Governors of St. Mary's Teaching Hospital Group, Paddington, decided to convert the Children's Hospital to adult use.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I understand that the principal reason is that the board considers that there is a surplus of staffed children's beds and not enough adult beds in the hospitals in this group.

Mr. Tomney: Does not the Minister realise that this will mean that the specialised assistance necessary for children will now be more widely dispersed; and as Paddington, Kensington and Hammersmith are densely populated areas with a large number of children, will not he see whether the decision can be reversed?

Mr. Macleod: The decision has not yet been taken; indeed, it is quite a long way in front. These are proposals put forward because the board consider that on the whole the need for children's beds has diminished, which, as a general proposition, is a true one, I am happy to say. We should beware of trying to freeze the pattern of hospital provision as it happened to be in 1948 when the scheme came in. There may well be very good reasons for a change of use, but I emphasise that no final decision in this matter has been taken.

Facilities, Bournemouth and East Dorset

Captain Pilkington: asked the Minister of Health what decision he has reached concerning the proposal of the Western Area Committee that a new hospital shall be built to serve the Poole-Bournemouth area.

Mr. J. Eden: asked the Minister of Health what steps he intends to take to relieve the present shortage of hospital beds in the Bournemouth and East Dorset area.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I have approved schemes at three hospitals in the Bournemouth and East Dorset area which during the next 18 months are expected to provide nearly 100 additional beds. The proposal for a new hospital in the Poole-Bournemouth area must be considered along with all other similar proposals now being submitted to me by hospital boards.

Captain Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the need there is very acute and that the number on the waiting list has gone up over the last two years; and can he expedite consideration of the matter?

Mr. Macleod: I will look at it as soon as it comes in. My information is that the new hospital in the Poole and Bournemouth area is placed fifth by the regional board concerned in its projects. If my hon. Friend chooses to take up that matter with the board and claims that that is a lower position than is warranted, that might be his most effective step.

Mr. J. Eden: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any additional money will be made available in this area for capital expenditure? Does he realise that there are about 5,000 people already on the waiting list for hospital treatment in the area and that the site for the new hospital has already been agreed?

Mr. Macleod: Over the course of the next three years, in the programme which I have announced, we are more or less doubling the capital provision in England and Wales. No doubt all areas will benefit from that. Whether any particular new hospital will be built, apart from that which I have already indicated in my statement, is a matter on which I cannot pronounce until I have seen all the detailed proposals.

Newcastle Region (Supplementary Capital Allocation)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Health what extra sum has been granted to the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board in addition to the original capital allocation for 1954–55; and whether similar additional provision can be made for 1955–56.

Mr. Iain Macleod: About £250,000. Ido not expect to be able to make a similar supplementary allocation next year.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that if additional sums are made available towards the end of the financial year it is very difficult to make full use of them? If he can make them available at the beginning of the financial year, we can guarantee to get the work done.

Mr. Macleod: If there is any possibility of under-spending, I shall do what I can to allocate the money available to the boards who can take it as soon as I can in the financial year, but I should have thought it unlikely that there would be the amount of under-spending this year that there was last year owingto the slow progress made with centrally financed schemes.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Can we assume that, in addition to the original capital allocation for schemes which are going forward the board, will get, say, £150,000 extra?

Mr. Macleod: Of course not. The hon. Members knows perfectly well that I must keep within the budget. But if moneys become available, I shall consider the claims of all regions equally when the time comes.

Mental Defectives (Employment)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Health approximately how many mentally defective adults are employed by private firms outside the institutions in which they live; what are the terms and conditions of such employment, and to what exent they are agreed with the appropriate trade unions; what proportion of the wages paid in such cases is issued or credited to the patients who earn them; and what proportion is retained by the institutions to cover these patients'board and lodging.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No figures are available of the numbers involved.

Employment of this kind is essentially a part of treatment and its nature and remuneration therefore depend on individual circumstances. Any special problem is a matter for discussion with the local representatives of the trade union concerned. The deductions made for board and lodging vary and are calculated in accordance with advice given to hospital authorities, of which I am sending a copy to the hon. Member.

Mr. Driberg: Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman does not lay down any general standards which should be conformed to? Is he aware that contractors sometimes get away with paying less than £3 a week for a hard and presumably useful week's work by physically fit high-grade mental defectives? Is not such exploitation grossly unfair both to the patients—who cannot argue for themselves—and to other workers whose pay is thereby undercut?

Mr. Macleod: As the hon. Gentleman will see from the circulars which I am sending to him, I lay down how various calculations should be made in relation to the pay which a patient obtains. I do not think that it is practicable to have central discussions with trade unions in this matter because the cases vary so enormously, but local difficulties often are rightly discussed with the local branches of the trade unions concerned. If the hon. Member knows of any case where he thinks there is any element of exploitation or which is not essentially related to the welfare of the patient, I shall be glad if he will let me have particulars.

Mr. Driberg: I appreciate that hospital authorities themselves have the best of intentions, and do this for the patients' welfare, but will the right hon. Gentleman consider suggesting to them that they ought always to discuss these cases with the local trade unions concerned and not only often, as he says they do?

Mr. Macleod: I shall certainly look into that. Part of the difficulty is that there is such an enormous variety of cases. So far as I know, no particular difficulties have arisen in relation to trade unions.

Butter and Margarine

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Health how many hospitals are economising in the use of butter for


hospital meals by substituting a blend of butter and margarine.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I regret that this information isnot available.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the right hon. Gentleman investigate what has happened in at least three hospitals in West London, where an attempt is being made to save a few miserable hundred pounds at the expense of 1,300 patients and staff?Does he think that we are so hard up that we have to have that kind of economy?

Mr. Macleod: I always look at anything which the hon. and gallant Gentleman chooses to put before me, but details of this sort cannot be laid down by the Ministry of Health and must be left to the hospitals.

Domestic Staff

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to reduce the shortage of domestic staff in hospitals.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware that difficulties arise locally, but in general the position has been improving in recent years. If the hon. and gallant Member has any particular case in mind I shall be glad to look into it.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is an immense turnover per year in the ancillary staffs of hospitals? Does he really think that he can get female cooks for 2s. 5d. an hour in London hospitals?

Mr. Macleod: As I say, although there are difficulties, which I think are part of the general shortage from which hospitals and everyone else suffers, the total number of whole-time and part-time staff has been going steadily up.

Building Schemes (Interest Charges)

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Health what portion of the sums he announced on 9th February for new hospital building represented interest charges; and how much extra the schemes will now cost, in view of the higher interest rates now in force.

Mr. Iain Macleod: None, Sir, so the second part of the Question does not arise.

Mr. Hynd: Does that answer mean that the increased interest charges will make no difference to the amount of building to be performed? Does the Treasury not impose a ceiling on expenditure of this kind?

Mr. Macleod: That has nothing to do with the Question, because this matter is financed by the Exchequer out of revenue.

Trainee Nurses

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that at some hospitals trainee nurses are engaged for long periods on night duty; and what are the exact recommendations laid down by his regulations on this point.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The Nurses Salaries Committee recommended that student nurses should not be employed continously on night duty for longer than three months. My right hon. Friend is aware that it may not always be possible to observe this recommendation. There are no other requirements on the subject.

Dr. Stross: Is the hon. Lady aware that the recommendation represents a sort of minimum? Will she take note of the fact that in some hospitals night nurses are working very many months more than three? They work three months, rest for a while, and then go on for another three months. Does the hon. Lady not agree that that is rather unsatisfactory?

Mis Hornsby-Smith: If the hon. Gentleman has any particular case in mind, we shall be glad to look into it. Under the regulations, there is a maximum of three months. They say that no student nurse should be employed on continuous night duty for longer than three months.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Health the recommendations laid down by his regulations as to the time that is allocated for student nurses to attend lectures; and to what extent student nurses are expected to attend lectures in their free time.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend has made no regulation on the subject and thinks it best to leave the arrangements to the discretion of hospital management committees and boards of governors; but whenever possible student nurses should not, in his view, be expected to attend lectures in their free time.

Dr. Stross: Is the hon. Lady aware that some student nurses come off night duty and have to go on to lectures in their free time after a long night, and that in fact means that they are doing about 15 hours' duty out of the 24, both voluntary and involuntary? Will she not agree that this is unsatisfactory, as she has suggested?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I quite agree that it is unsatisfactory if it happens too often. Sometimes there are very special lectures that these nurses have to attend for examination purposes. For some of the students those lectures must come in the off-duty hours, and it is unavoidable in those cases. We would like this to be kept to the minimum.

Staff Appointments

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Health to what extent it is customary for regional hospital boards, hospital group committees, or matrons to consult employees of any grade before considering new appointments to their staffs; and, where this is the practice, what steps he has taken to recommend that it be discontinued.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Joint machinery is widely used for consultation on matters affecting management and staff, and I would greatly deplore any narrowing of its proper scope.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that this goes far beyond those terms of reference, because staff have been asked whether they would be prepared to accept other staff even though they happen to be coloured themselves? Surely that goes far beyond the case to which he has referred?

Mr. Macleod: No, I do not think so. The individual case has been happily settled now. The fact that a particular piece of advice is open to criticism, if it is, does not mean that there is anything wrong with the principle of consultation.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the Minister encourage consultation with the staff regarding the employment of staff? Does it apply right through the medical staff, down to orderlies?

Mr. Macleod: Obviously there would be no consultation on individual appointments, but on very wide matters it is perfectly proper that there should be consultation.

Mr. Sorensen: I do not agree at all.

Dental Research

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied with the amount of dental research work at present being undertaken in dental hospitals; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Dental research is in progress not only at these hospitals but in a number of other centres. If the hon. Member has any particular difficulty in mind, perhaps he will let me know.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the Minister satisfied that this work is properly coordinated? Would he agree to make recommendations to set up a special committee for this work under the Medical Research Council?

Mr. Macleod: I should like to look at that proposal, particularly in the context of the Medical Research Board which has recently been set up.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Medical Certificates (Charges)

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that many doctors charge 2s. for medical certificates issued to the National Health Service patients; and if he will make a regulation to prohibit this charge.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: General practitioners in the National Health Service are not required to provide free medical certificates other than those required under the National Insurance Acts and certain other enactments which are set out in regulations. My right hon. Friend sees no reason, on the information at present before him, for altering this system.

Mr. Collins: Is the hon. Lady aware that the certificates have very often to be paid for after a period of unemployment when people are least able to afford extras? If the per capita charge does not cover the issue of certificates, will she have a word with her right hon. Friend to see whether it can be adjusted so that they can be issued free?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Certificates which are required in order to obtain benefits under any of the regulations are obtainable free, and if a doctor charged for such


a certificate it would be against the regulations; but other types of certificates-school authority certificates and the like—are not covered by the regulations.

Teething Powders (Mercury Content)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Health if he has considered the recent case, to which his attention has been drawn, of a baby's death from mercury poisoning; and what action he will take concerning the supply of tablets containing mercury to infants.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Yes, Sir. While my right hon. Friend is advised that mercurial preparations have a proper place in medical treatment, his medical officers have already suggestedto medical officers of health that powders containing mercury should be issued from child welfare clinics only on medical advice and with precise instructions. He will consider further whether to suggest that these preparations should cease to be available at clinics at all.

Mr. Swingler: While thanking the Parliamentary Secretary for that reply, is she aware that there have been several disturbing cases of babies' deaths from mercury poisoning in the last 18 months, sometimes mercury derived from teething powders and sometimes tablets? In addition to the action proposed, does she not agree that some general public warning might be sent out by the Minister's medical advisers in view of the public concern created by recent inquests?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I think that the general publicity, particularly in professional journals, and advice given by the Minister's medical officers of health made this clear. I should like to make it plain that if they were not given by clinics that would not interfere with the right of a doctor to prescribe a preparation in which it was included.

Dr. Stross: Has the hon. Lady any information to give to the House as to whether there is a definite association between the giving of these powders and tablets containing mercury and the disease called "Pink Disease," which is so often lethal to children?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I think that the hon. Member had better put down

another Question. So far as this particular case was concerned, the coroner's verdict was "Accidental death caused by Pink Disease," but it was not certain that it was attributable to the particular tablets given.

Welfare Foods

Mr. Marquand: asked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement concerning the distribution of welfare foods by local authorities for the first six months following the transfer to them of responsibility for this service.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I would refer the right hon. Member to the returns which I have called for from local health authorities and to which I made reference in my answer to him of the 4th March.

Mr. Marquand: Would the right hon. Gentleman be willing to collaborate with me in arranging in some way for an oral answer to this Question at a later date when he has the information?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, certainly.

Eye Treatment, Essex (Press Advertisement)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Healt what action he intends to take in respect of the unqualified eye-specialist, details of whom have been sent to him, who has advertised his services in an Essex newspaper.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: None, Sir, as the material so far seen does not suggest that he is breaking the law.

Mr. Driberg: While appreciating that there is no illegality, may I ask the hon. Lady whether she would agree that it is unfortunate that these advertisements should appear containing glowing testimonials which may raise false hopes? Will she give an assurance that there is no treatment that this man can provide which my constituents could not get equally, or better, under the National Health Service?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I agree with the hon. Member that the type of advertisement is most undesirable, but we are concerned only with infringement of the law, and it is, shall we say, cleverly drafted so as to not infringe the law. I agree that any necessary treatment for this type of disease is more fully, and better, provided under the National Health Service.

Analgesia (Trilene)

Mr. Bottomley: asked the Minister of Health when the Central Midwives Board will make available the new machines for administering trilene to ease pain in childbirth.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The board has approved two types of machines for use by midwives, and these are now in production.

Sanitary Inspectors

Mr. A. Evans: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the shortage of sanitary inspectors and the consequent difficulties of some local authorities in fulfilling their statutory duties under the Housing and Public Health Acts; and if he will make a statement.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Neither my right hon. Friend nor the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who has been consulted, have reason for thinking that local authorities are being seriously held up in discharging these duties by a shortage of sanitary inspectors, although they are aware of cases in which a local authority have not been able to recruit as many as they would like.

Mr. Evans: Has the hon. Lady or her right hon. Friend studied the Report of the Working Party which reported about 18 months ago—I think the figures were for 1951—that there was a shortage of 250 in the country? Will the hon. Lady bear in mind that if Parliament places upon local authorities added burdens and duties, then Parliament must help to devise the means by which the duties may be carried out? The reply is most unsatisfactory.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Member should be aware from answers to previous Questions that my right hon. Friend has accepted in principle the findings of the Working Party, and that discussions are already taking place with the many interested bodies which are very much concerned in this problem.

Mr. Lewis: Is not that contradictory to the Minister's first reply? In the first reply it was said that there was no cause for concern and that the authorities were not very anxious. If the hon. Lady goes into the overcrowded areas, which are now getting on with slum clearance and having to deal with bombed and blitzed

properties, she will find that there is a great shortage and a great need. Will she do something to assist them?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Member is confusing the issue. The Working Party dealt with recruitment and the coming necessity for increasing recruitment and getting a larger intake each year. That we accept. The Question put now was whether at this moment local government was apparently breaking down because of the shortage—

Mr. Evans: I did not say "breaking down."

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not say that, but that is just as accurate a paraphrase as the one used by the hon. Gentleman. From the evidence we have received from local authorities, the existing services are not seriously put out, and I do not see that that conflicts in any way with the investigations being made about future recruitment for the service.

Mr. A. Evans: asked the Minister of Health if he will give a current estimate of the number of sanitary inspectors short of establishment, and of the number of vacancies; and which are the areas most affected.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am afraid that my right hon. Friend cannot give any reliable estimate.

Mr. Evans: Has the Minister studied this matter, and can the hon. Lady explain why the Department is not in possession of this information?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: All the figures given in the Report, and, indeed, in the records, were pure estimates. The one estimate was of a shortage of 240, but we have not the details of every position advertised and estimated by local authorities.

Mr. Gibson: Is the Minister aware, that, in spite of what she is saying, there are many houses, in London, in particular, and inmany other areas, which ought to be inspected by sanitary inspectors, but which cannot be so inspected because there is not a sufficient staff of inspectors, with the result that many houses which ought to be condemned are still being lived in?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that this question of sanitary inspectors is an important one, but that does not detract from the fact that the Working Party Report has to be thoroughly investigated and discussed with many bodies, which is something that is being carried out by the Department at this moment.

Mr. Marquand: Is the hon. Lady aware that earlier her right hon. Friend gave information about vacancies for psychiatric social workers? Why is it more difficult to get information about vacancies for sanitary inspectors?

Mr. Macleod: indicated dissent.

Mr. Marquand: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman gave the number of vacancies. He certainly gave the numbers employed and an indication that there was a shortage of such people. Surely, it ought to be possible to get the information from the local authorities. Would the hon. Lady get it within a week or two if we put down a Question?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The only figure given was that of 240, which was assessed by the Working Party on the basis of the total of authorised establishments and the number of inspectors at present in employment. [HON. MEMBERS: "In 1951?"] Yes, in 1951. That was a survey carried out by the Working Party at the time. But as the Report has been accepted in principle, and as action is now under way to try to remedy the situation, to go through another complete analysis would not, I feel, serve any purpose.

Mr. A. Evans: asked the Minister of Health if he will confer with the Sanitary Inspectors Association with a view to speeding the training and recruitment of sanitary inspectors.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The matter is under discussion with the bodies concerned, including the association.

Mr. Evans: Can the hon. Lady say how far advanced are the discussions with the Sanitary Inspectors Association?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Discussions have already taken place with six of the bodies concerned with this Working Party Report and a deputation from the Sanitary Inspectors Association is to be received at the Ministry on 11th March.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the hon. Lady aware that in Newcastle, for example, residents are having to wait some months before they can get their certificates of disrepair issued because of the lack of sanitary inspectors?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I quite accept that point, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there are probably eight or 10 organisations, all very important in this sphere, which have to be consulted, and which, in order to get their members to attend such deputations, require adequate notice. When some agreement has been reached in general form between all the interested parties, the matter will be referred to them in order to get an agreed programme. There is no delay on our part.

Mr. Evans: I wish to give notice that, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the replies, I shall take an early opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Disabled Ex-Service Men (Motor Cars)

Mr. Simmons: asked the Minister of Health (1) how many disabled ex-Service men are at present using cars supplied to them under the Ministry of Pensions scheme now administered by his Department;
(2) how many new cars have been delivered from the manufacturers for the use of disabled ex-Service men since 1951;
(3) how many badly disabled war pensioners, other than those suffering a double amputation, who are borderline cases similar to Mr. John Kennedy Macleod, have been refused cars since 1951.

Mr. Iain Macleod: One thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven war pensioners are using motor cars and 405 new cars have been delivered since 1st January, 1951. No figures are available of the number of war pensioners with disabilities like those in the case mentioned who have been refused motor cars.

Mr. Simmons: Can the Minister say how many of these category C cases, or cases making a claim under category C, have been turned down and whether his supply of cars meets not only the official need, but also the potential need, if humanity were displayed towards such people as Mr. John Kennedy Macleod?

Mr. Macleod: As regards the individual case mentioned, the hon. Gentleman will realise, I am sure, that I merely act as the agent for the supply of the car and that the question of eligibility is one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. As far as the general supply of cars is concerned, as I said to the hon. Gentleman in answer to a Question last week, every case that is considered eligible can be met. The difficulty in the case mentioned—as I understand it from reading the Adjournment debate, and so on—was that although that case has been reviewed many times, it was not considered to come within the standard rules.

Mr. Marquand: Is the right hon. Gentleman still authorised to go up to 2,000, because I noted that he is rather short of that number?

Mr. Macleod: The figures which I have given are short of that number, but there are, in fact, a number of new cars available and cars from other sources which bring the total number to 2,002.

Sir D. Robertson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Mr. John Kennedy Macleod is a constituent of mine, that he has a double amputation and, in addition, other very serious wounds? Is my right hon. Friend also aware that Mr. Macleod was granted a motor-tricycle under Category C. but that under the same category he is refused a car?

Mr. Macleod: My hon. Friend will, I am sure, realise that if Mr. Macleod were considered eligible, a car could be provided for him. But the question of eligibility is not one for me; I merely act as the agent for supply only.

Mr. H. Morrison: Am I right in inferring from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that there are two Ministers responsible for these matters in Scotland, that the right hon. Gentleman is the supplying Minister and that the Secretary of State for Scotland is the allocating Minister? Does it not tend to create a muddle if two Ministers are doing the same thing in Scotland? I do not remember another such case. If that be so, to what Minister ought Questions to be addressed?

Mr. Macleod: The question of eligibility is entirely a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for

Scotland. It does not create a muddle, because, as a matter of fact, exactly similar arrangements were in operation when my Ministry acted as agent for the old Ministry of Pensions. All that I am saying is that my job is to act only as the agent of supply. Any question regarding the case ventilated this afternoon is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Morrison: In that case, is this Question on the Order Paper not one about eligibility, and, therefore, whose responsibility is it, the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Minister of Health? Why is the right hon. Gentleman answering Questions about Scotland?

Mr. Macleod: I am not, and if the right hon. Gentleman will study the Question a little more closely he will see that the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) asks whether I have information about "borderline cases similar to" a particular one. I have no responsibility at all for that case. Of course, I should have to answer Questions about similar cases if they came within the purview of England and Wales.

Mr. Simmons: Will the Minister say whether he is in favour of this delay and, sometimes, treble control of the welfare of ex-Service men? Is it not an outcome of the ill-advised merger of the Ministry of Pensions that we now have three Departments all fighting each other as to whose responsibility it is and "passing the buck" to each other when these problems are under discussion?

Mr. Macleod: That is quite untrue. In fact, a similar responsibility existed before.

Food Poisoning

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Health how many food poisoning incidents due to processed and made-up meats were recorded in the years 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953; what percentage of the total incidents resulted from such causes in each of the four years; and what advice is being given to those responsible for avoiding such incidents.

Mr. Iain Macleod: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate these in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The Minister of Food and I continually encourage local authorities in their efforts to secure a high standard of food hygiene, and the particular dangers


associated with processed and made-up meats are emphasised. Where an outbreak has occurred the medical officer of health usually gives advice to those concerned on how to avoid a recurrence.

Mr. Hastings: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the proportion of these cases which are due to meat and meat products is increasing? Does not he agree that almost every one of them would be completely eliminated if the principles of elementary cleanliness were adhered to? Will not he have an inquiry made, because these epidemics—which in my view and in the view of many others could be almost completely eliminated—are causing great inconvenience and some loss of life?

Mr. Macleod: The hon. Member will see from the figures that the number of outbreaks goes up and down from year to year, and that the percentage of food poisoning outbreaks where we can trace the infection is about 50 per cent., and has increased very slightly. As far as the second part of the Question is concerned, I and my colleagues do everything we can in these matters, and I shall be very glad to have any detailed suggestions from the hon. Member for getting rid of more of these outbreaks.

Following is the information:


The following table gives the number and percentage of recorded "outbreaks" of food poisoning (i.e. instances of two or more related cases, but excluding sporadic cases, where processed and made-up meats have been identified as the vehicle of infection.


Year
Number of "outbreaks" attributed to processed and made-up meats
Percentage of total food poisoning outbreaks (all foods) where the vehicle of infection has been identified





Per cent.


1950
…
202
46


1951
…
114
49


1952
…
144
53


1953
…
164
53

Opticians (Registration)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Health when he proposes to introduce legislation for the registration of ophthalmic and dispensing opticians.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I fear that my right hon. Friend can hold out no hope of legislation on this subject at present.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Will the Parliamentary Secretary discuss this matter with her right hon. Friend? As the Crook Committee's Report has now been standing for some three years, and as I understand the opticians themselves have got together upon the matter and there are now no professional difficulties, cannot we have some promise of legislation?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I quite agree, but the difficulty is with the time-table of the House and not with the profession at the present moment.

Mr. Marquand: Will the hon. Lady assure the Leader of the House that legislation of this kind will be morefavourably received than the Dentists' Bill, which we are still awaiting?

Medical Manpower (Colonial Service)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Minister of Health if he will request the committee which he has set up to consider medical manpower problems to consider the question of recruitment in relation to colonial needs as well as to the needs of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The committee's terms of reference cover all branches of the profession, and it will therefore take account of doctors who go overseas as well as those who remain in this country.

Mr. Brockway: In view of the fact that there is an urgent need for doctors in the Colonies—where often there is only one doctor for 30,000 people, compared with one doctor for 1,000 people in this country—will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Secretary of State for the Colonies with a view to seeing that opportunities are made available both for British citizens and colonial subjects to enter medical schools for this purpose?

Mr. Macleod: Yes. I am in touch with my right hon. Friend upon that matter. The medical committee which has been set up will be concerned only with medical training in this country, but it must take into account all the possible places to which qualified doctors may go from their universities, and that includes the Colonies.

Mr. J. Johnson: Is the Minister aware that the only permanent solution to this problem is to expand the medical faculties at Ibadan, Makerere and all universities in the Colonies? Will he use his good offices with the Secretary of State for the Colonies and do something in this matter?

Mr. Macleod: That is not a question for me in the first instance.

Blood Stocks, North-East Region

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Health what steps are being taken to improve the stocks held by blood banks by hospitals in North-East England.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I understand that the cold weather of the last fortnight has led to a falling off in the response of donors asked to attend bleeding sessions, and that local publicity to counteract this has been undertaken. So far, stocks have been adequate to meet all demands.

Mr. Willey: In view of the fact that the regional officer called attention to the position as being very grave, and suggested that the position in the North-East England Region is worse than that of other regions, will he keep this matter under review and see what response he obtains?

Mr. Macleod: Yes. I shall look into that matter. I saw a report in a local paper—about which the hon. Member probably knows—saying that the blood banks were more or less dry. It is worth assuring people in the area that that is not true. We have what I am told are adequate stocks, and we always try to keep a safety margin. I will, however, review the matter in the light of what he has said.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the Minister say what steps are taken to see that adequate liaison exists between this and other regions in cases of shortage?

Mr. Macleod: I shall look into that matter, although I am informed that there is not a shortage, and arrangements exist by which, in an emergency, supplies could be obtained.

Tuberculosis, Sunderland

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Health what factors have caused the increase in the number of persons suffering from tuberculosis in the county borough

of Sunderland from 839 at 31st December, 1938, to 1,695 at 31st December, 1954.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Much of this increase is almost certainly due to the better facilities and methods in diagnosis and treatment which enable a higher proportion of cases to be discovered and successfully treated. The number of new cases notified is declining.

Mr. Willey: Recognising the importance of diagnosis, would not the hon. Lady agree that these figures are somewhat disturbing, as there has been no sign of a fall in the number of those suffering from tuberculosis? Will she keep this matter under review, because we are very concerned at the high rate?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that certainly in the area in which he is interested the figures have permanently been higher than the average for the country. They are showing a good decline now, but my right hon. Friend is watching the question throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions — DATES OF ASSIZES (PRESS NOTIFICATION)

Mr. Hayman: asked the Attorney-General whether he will send a circular to all under-sheriffs drawing their attention to the desirability of sending a postal notification of the holding of an assize to the editors of all provincial and local newspapers circulating in the areaof the assize, in addition to the advertisement now usually appearing in a single newspaper.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): No, Sir. I consider that the present arrangements for advertising the dates of assizes are adequate to ensure that notice of them is effectively brought to the attention of all concerned.

Mr. Hayman: Will the Attorney-General bear in mind that in a county like Cornwall, which is 80 miles across, one advertisement in a Plymouth newspaper is not adequate to cover the whole of the county and any part of Devon that might be involved? Is he aware that the suggestion made in the Question would involve an office boy in only a few minutes' time, and the State


in a few stamps? Will he look at the proposal again in order to see that there is adequate publicity in all cases?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman wrote to me about this one case. There has been no other complaint about these advertisements of assizes. In those circumstances, although the matter has been looked at in the light of the hon. Gentleman's correspondence, it does not seem necessary to go to the expense and trouble of notifying every local paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (TREATMENT OF BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR)

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Attorney-General if he will prosecute Mr. Jack Gaster for giving treasonable comfort to the enemy during his visit to Chinese prison camps where British prisoners of war were held captive.

Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: asked the Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to the treasonable activities of certain British nationals, as revealed in the Ministry of Defence Paper on the Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea; and what proceedings he proposes to institute.

Mr. Nicholson: asked the Attorney-General whether he will give instructions for proceedings to be taken against Mr. Alan Winnington, Mr. Michael Shapiro, Mr. Jack Gaster, and Mrs. Monica Felton for treason.

Mr. Daines: asked the Attorney-General (1) what action he proposes to take against Mr. Alan Winnington of the "Daily Worker," a report of whose treasonable activities appears in page 26 of the Ministry of Defence statement of treatment of British prisoners of war in Korea;
(2) what action he proposes to take against Michael Shapiro of the "Daily Worker," a report of whose treasonable activities appears on page 27 of the Ministry of Defence statement on British prisoners of war.

Major Beamish: asked the Attorney-General if he will institute proceedings in regard to the treasonable activities of the employees of the "Daily Worker" disclosed in the report on the treatment of prisoners of war in Korea.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: asked the Attorney-General whether he will give instructions for proceedings to be taken against Mr. Alan Winnington, Mr. Michael Shapiro, Mr. Jack Gaster, and Mrs. Monica Felton for treason.

The Attorney-General: According to the information in my possession, neither Mr. Alan Winnington nor Mr. Michael Shapiro is now resident within the jurisdiction. If either of them returns to this country I shall, of course, carefully consider the question whether criminal proceedings should be instituted; but no such question arises at present. With regard to Mr. Jack Gaster and Mrs. Monica Felton, the facts disclosed in the; statement do not, in my opinion, suffice to justify a prosecution.

Brigadier Clarke: Would the Attorney-General not agree that Gaster behaved in a thoroughly traitorous manner? Will he see that people who go outside this country are not allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour by staying away, and that he will treat them as traitors and hang them when they come back?

Mr. Daines: In the case of the two individuals named in my Questions, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that he has legal power to take proceedings against them? Does he recognise that if the cold war goes on we may get a repeat of this type of conduct? May I call attention to the fact that at the end of the last war men were hanged for lesser crimes than these people have committed?

The Attorney-General: In regard to the two gentlemen—the two men—mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to him. I said in my answer that if they return to this country, I shall, of course, carefully consider the question whether criminal proceedings should be instituted.

Mr. Hutchison: Does the Attorney-General realise the depth of the abhorrence of the people of this country at the cruel, callous, cynical conduct, not only of the Communists but of these British, Commonwealth so-called "visitors," and their behaviour? Does he think that the fact that the campaign in Korea was waged and carried out by the United Nations makes any difference to the legislative powers which he has? If so, will


he take steps to examine whether the gap cannot be closed?

The Attorney-General: The answer to the first part of the supplementary question is "Yes, Sir." The answer to the second part is that amending legislation is a matter for the Home Secretary.

Mr. Nicholson: Is it not true that had similar conduct occurred during the war with Germany, if not prosecutions for treason, then at any rate proceedings under Defence Regulations, would have been taken? Is not this the sort of anomaly which prevents the law from being held in the high respect it should be? Will my right hon. and learned Friend take steps to remove that anomaly, and will he see that no such crowning insult recurs as that which took place a few weeks ago when Mrs. Felton appeared on television?

The Attorney-General: Of course, I have no responsibility for the latter event. With regard to the other supplementary question my hon. Friend asked, I should not like it to be assumed that if Winnington or Shapiro returned to this country the arm of the law would be too short to reach them.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Can a traitor to this country sink much lower in furthering enemy aims than play on the feelings of heart-broken parents whose children have died fighting for their country? Was this not done by Mrs. Monica Shelton—[HON. MEMBERS: "Felton."]—or Felton, or whatever her name is? If she cannot be deported, will my right hon. and learned Friend give an assurance to this House that he will not give her employment at the taxpayers' expense, as was done by the Socialist Government?

Mr. Paget: Is it not clear that, so far as treason is concerned, no treason is committed by giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United Nations, and will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us some assurance that legislation will be introduced to fill this obvious gap?

The Attorney-General: The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross), when he was my predecessor in office, three times expressed the opinion that the Treason Act would apply to the Korean conflict.

Sir F. Medlicott: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that Mr. Winnington, in the campaign itself, consorted continuously with the enemy, and in his despatches to the "Daily Worker" accused British and American troops of savagery and cowardice? Is there not some way in which at least the publication of such scurrilous attacks on our fellow countrymen in the "Daily Worker" can be prevented?

Mr. S. Silverman: In view of the undesirability of condemning people in advance of proceedings and upon anonymous evidence, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what opportunity was given, if any, to the named persons to comment on the allegations made against them before their names were used in this publication in this way? Having regard to the extremely important implications of the Questions and answers that have been given, and which are caused by this publication, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consult the Leader of the House to see if time can be found for a proper debate on the subject?

The Attorney-General: With regard to the first supplementary question, there appears to have been plenty of opportunity for comment in the columns of the "Daily Worker" since publication. With regard to the second part, I have no doubt that the Leader of the House has heard the suggestion.

Mr. Tomney: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not realise that there is a wider issue here, and that these were not only crimes against British soldiers and Commonwealth soldiers but crimes against humanity? Will this Government and this nation not give a lead in this continuing cold war to demonstrate that our standards of justice and our sense of righteousness will not be lightly surrendered to tyranny of this kind?

The Attorney-General: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that one cannot bring before a British court of justice someone who is outside the jurisdiction of our courts.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that much doubt is being cast upon what has been said about these visitors through the publication, in the "Daily Worker" particularly, of statements from people who


came from Camp 5, which was the main "progressive" camp? Would it not be as well now, so that the truth may be known, for the statements made in the Government paper to be authenticated by giving the names and descriptions of the people on whose evidence the statements are founded?

Mr. Daines: Arising out of the supplementary by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), cannot the issue be put to the test by Winnington and Shapiro returning to this country and the jurisdiction of British law?

Mr. E. Fletcher: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not think that the present law of treason is out of date in modern conditions? Will he bring his influence to bear so that legislation may be introduced to amend the existing law, and to provide for different penalties for different kinds of treason?

The Attorney-General: With regard to the first part of the supplementary question, the conduct of Mrs. Felton and of Gaster did not suffice to warrant a prosecution. With regard to the other two named persons, it is perfectly apparent from the statement that has been published that their conduct was of a different character, and I would ask the hon. Gentleman not to assume that if they came within the jurisdiction a prosecution might not well be launched.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman answer the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) behind him, about whether the Government would consider publishing the names and addresses and so forth of the people concerned? Would he say also whether they have been approached about this matter, because it is of great importance?

The Attorney-General: I did not answer that question because it had been answered by the Minister of Defence on 3rd March.

Hon. Members: What was the answer?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House.)—[Mr. Crookshank.]

Orders of the Day — RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the requirements of the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under section one of the said Act of 1944, under Part I of the Local Government Act, 1948, or under the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954.

Resolution agreed to.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTIONS UNDER RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE ACT, 1944.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

3.38 p.m.

Mr. George Brown: My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have not put any Amendments to the Bill on the Order Paper because we felt that, as the Bill is so bad in its conception, so fundamentally indecent, the only Amendments we could have put down would have been wrecking Amendments, and we preferred not to table such Amendments. However, unless we can have better answers to our questions from the Government than we got on Second Reading, the Order for which the Leader of the House, very prudently, put down for as late at night as he could get it, so that the public outside should not know what he was up to, it will be very difficult for us to allow this Clause to stand part of the Bill.
For the benefit of those hon. Members who, naturally enough, were not here for Second Reading at the very late hour at which it was arranged by the Leader of the House, who did not listen to the debate then, and does not propose to listen to the debate now—though I would congratulate him on that, for it is a Bill of which I, too, should be ashamed if I were in his position—let me point out


what this Clause, which is, in effect, the whole Bill, does. In the words of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, it increases the charges that will fall upon the taxpayers for installing the same amount of piped water supplies and for taking away sewerage at the same rate as that which would have obtained without that Clause. In other words, we pay in England and Wales alone £19 million more and, if my figures are correct, in Scotland £8½ million more for the privilege of doing the same amount of work. In the Second Reading debate nobody sought to answer that point.
Here, I want to digress for a moment to enter a very solemn protest. In Committee we had the benefit of the attendance of a Treasury Minister in discussing what is, in effect, a Treasury Bill, but he did not address us. It will be within your recollection, Sir Charles, since you had the unfortunate duty of sitting there during the exchanges, that we had considerable difficulty in getting the Treasury Minister to rise to his feet even on his own Motion for the Money Resolution. This afternoon, on what is, I repeat, a Treasury Bill, we are completely without the attendance of any Treasury Minister.
The questions that my hon. Friends and I want to put are wholly financial ones, because this is a financial Bill. I want to ask about the financial operations and the financial consequences. Is it treating the Committee reasonably when no Treasury Minister attends? Should we not have the Financial Secretary to the Treasury here? This is his business. It is not the business of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
I see that there is a representative from the Government Whip's Office here. I should like to ask him whether an attempt will be made to bring the Financial Secretary to the Treasury here, so that he pays attention to his business. His business is to be here defending a Motion which has wholly financial considerations. I believe that they are bad ones, but presumably the Government believe they are good ones. I assure the Government Whips' Office that if the Financial Secretary to the Treasury stays away and we get, as is almost certain, no real information from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government,

the Bill will run into considerable trouble.
We on this side of the Committee believe that we are entitled to put our questions to the Ministers concerned. I am very glad to see the Lord Advocate here. I understand that he made a very successful debut a few nights ago. He may be a better Lord Advocate than we have been accustomed to under this Government in the past. I am emboldened to believe that that is so, because I could hardly believe it to be otherwise. But, with respect to the Lord Advocate, I doubt whether he is an authority on the Treasury. I doubt whether he knows what made the Treasury come to this view.
The Parliamentary Secretary said, when he introduced the Bill, that the Bill came before us now because of a review that was carried out last year of Departmental expenditure. That review was not carried out by his Department. It was carried out presumably by the Treasury. On the basis of it, the Treasury decided that it was worth while spending £27½ million more than it would otherwise spend.
The first question I want to ask is: how did the Treasury come to that decision? What is the compensating benefit to set against the extra £27½million? I do not see how the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government will be able to give the answer to that question, and I repeat that I hope we shall have the Financial Secretary to the Treasury here to attend to what is obviously his duty.
When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government opened his speech on 22nd February he used these words:
This is primarily an internal financial transaction, but I am aware that a great many hon. Members are extremely interested in these grants. They govern the speed"—
these are the operative words—
at which we can bring piped water and sewerage to the rural areas …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1188.]
3.45 p.m.
Leaving aside the point that we do not want to bring sewerage to the rural areas but we want to take it away—assuming that is what the hon. Gentleman meant—the point I want to put is: how do these grants under this Bill, in the new form, affect the speed at which we bring water


to the rural areas and take sewerage away? What is the effect on the speed? It does not seem to me that it can have any effect at all. It seems to me that all it does is, as I said, to increase the cost of doing it at the same rate that it is being done now. If I am wrong about that—and the hon. Gentleman was unable to point out where I was wrong in the Second Reading debate—I would like him to answer that question now.
My first point, therefore—what is the compensating advantage to set against the extra £27½ million?—is one that only the Financial Secretary can answer. My second point is one that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government can answer—namely, how does he make good his boast that this affects the speed at which we do it?
My third point, I should have thought, is for the Financial Secretary who is so shy about coming into this Committee. In column 1189 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 22nd February we are given the figures of the progress so far made. We were told by the hon. Gentleman that we paid out £16 million, we have promised for schemes in progress £10 million, and we have promised for schemes in an advanced stage of preparation £9½million, making a total of £35½million and leaving a balance unpledged of £9½ million out of the original £45 million.
In view of the claim that this Bill and the grants under it affect the speed at which we can do this, I want to know how much longer will the £9½ million last. Since the hon. Gentleman said that we have committed ourselves to about £9 million for sewerage and about £8 million for water in the last year, it looks to me as if, at this rate, we have barely got another year's resources left. It seems to me in that case that, instead of bringing in a Bill to increase the cost of all that we have so far undertaken, it would have been more to the point if the Government had brought in a Bill to provide rather more for the future.
The villages in my constituency and those of my hon. Friends which are now without a piped water supply and without a rural sewerage scheme, will find it very cold comfort, when they ask when they are to get theirs, if they are to be told,

You cannot have yours because the money which we have got to finance your scheme is, instead, being used to increase the cost of the other schemes which have already been agreed.
It seems to me that the £27½ million would have been much better used on financing an extension to the schemes, on financing additional work, instead of adding to the profits that the money lenders are to make out of lending their money for the old schemes. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell me how long the £9½ million will last and how much more work we could have done if we had used the £27½ million for the purpose of extending the schemes instead of increasing the interest rates.
Another question I want to ask is this—and this, again, is a question for the Financial Secretary, because I really do not see how the Parliamentary Secretary can answer it. I hope he is reinforced with a battery of shrinking Treasury maidens in the place to which we do not normally refer, although, however attractive may be the virtues of the Treasury maidens, they are not nearly so attractive to me as the Financial Secretary would be if he were here. The £9½ million is what we have left under the old scheme. How much will we now have to spend to achieve the same amount of work as that £9½ million would have achieved in the old way?
He was good enough to give us an elaborate financial calculation. Having read the report of his speech, I am reinforced in what I thought when I heard it—a view which I tentatively expressed and which I now confirm: the hon. Gentleman read his brief so well that he ought to be Financial Secretary and the Financial Secretary ought to be in his place.
As reported in column 1190, he gave a remarkable calculation showing that £18,600,000 was extra—and I invite the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), one spirit on the other side of the Committee to whom I might reasonably appeal on this subject, to bear this point in mind: the Parliamentary Secretary told us, as reported in the last complete paragraph of column 1190, that the increased payment which we had to make on the £27,600,000 was £67 8s. for every £100, so that the increase on the total of £27,600,000 was £18,600,000. In


other words, for every £100 worth of work to be done we now have to find another £67 8s. which is why we have to find an extra £18,600,000 to finance £27,600,000 worth of work. Is it not a fantastic suggestion that work which could have been done for £27,600,000 should now cost us another £18,600,000?
That brings me back to the original point: what is the compensating advantage which the Treasury has found for wasting £18,600,000 of our money to do what we had already contracted to do for £27,600,000? What is the point of putting up the cost by an extra £67 8s. for every £100 worth of work?
I thought that the Treasury was now engaged on a deflationary operation. I had the extreme pleasure today of lunching with the distinguished city editor of a large newspaper which supports the party opposite, and he went to great pains to explain to me that not only was the Chancellor of the Exchequer engaged in a deflationary operation but that it was highly necessary for him tobe so engaged.
How can it be deflationary to put up the cost of every £100 worth of work by £67 8s.? Such a procedure sounds to me highly inflationary. We on this side of the Committee are not supposed to understand these things as cleary as do hon. Members opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I said that we are not supposed to; I did not say that we did not understand them as well as hon. Members opposite. I should have thought that this operation was inflationary, because if we add two-thirds to the cost we must be inflating the cost. What is the compensating advantage?
The Parliamentary Secretary said that we now have £9·5 million left to spend. By how much will that rise? To over £15 million? To very nearly £16 million? Am I right? The £9½ million worth of work which we have left will now cost us £16 million or thereabouts to carry out. I should like to know the exact figure so that I know where I am.
I have one other question to ask at this stage and then we shall be glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary. I hope he will speak long enough for the Financial Secretary to be found in his fastnesses across the road, because I give notice that if he treats the Committee with contempt I shall seek to move a different Motion sometime during our discussion. We are

quite serious in our belief that the Financial Secretary should be here. He is the appropriate Minister and it is not reasonable that he should stay away. I am assuming that he is to be brought here, but if that does not turn out to be the case, then I promise the Parliamentary Secretary that he will not get this Clause without considerable trouble on the way.
In the last complete paragraph of column 1189 the Parliamentary Secretary discusses what he means by very small grants, which are the only grants which will continue to be paid by capital sums. He said that those very small grants were of £1,000 or less. All the others will be amortised. This, again, is a question for the Financial Secretary: how can it be reasonable to amortise £1,500 or £2,000 over thirty years? How can it be reasonable not to pay, straight away, £1,500 or £2,000, which could easily be carried in the ordinary way, thus saving all the interest charges?
Why does the Bill fix the figure at £1,000? If the hon. Gentleman wants to do what to me is a quite absurd and indefensible operation, then surely £5,000 or £10,000 is more like the figure at which we should start. The £1,000 is ridiculous; it might as well be £500 or £100. This was only the Parliamentary Secretary's statement of the administrative intentions of the Government. Had the figure appeared in the Bill we would certainly have moved to substitute another figure.
The Parliamentary Secretary ought to consider giving a promise to the Committee that he will consult his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, when he arrives from his fastnesses across the road, about giving an undertaking that the limit will not be £1,000 but something much nearer £5,000 or £10,000 so that at least we can save the interest charges on the hordes of very small grants.
I have put to the Parliamentary Secretary a few questions to go on with. We shall be interested to hear his answers. This seems such an indefensible and illogical Bill, however, that it is quite unreasonable to expect a Departmental Minister to defend what is, on his own admission, a Treasury Bill. We hope that we shall hear comments not only from him but also from the Financial Secretary.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: On a point of order, Sir Charles. You have


heard from the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) that a number of very important issues relating to the financial implications of the Bill have been addressed to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—questions which nobody other than a Treasury Minister can answer. We are in this difficulty: the Financial Secretary has not yet arrived. He is within the precincts of the building and is prepared to address the Committee on the next Bill, the Public Works Loans Bill. Indeed, these two Bills are very much inter-related.
I ask you, therefore, as a matter of order, whether, in view of the circumstances, it is not impossible to proceed with the consideration of this Bill in Committee until the Financial Secretary is present and whether it will be possible for me to move a Motion to the effect that consideration of the Bill be postponed until we have considered the Public Works Loans Bill. For the second Bill, the Financial Secretary will be here.

The Chairman: The second suggestion would not be possible and the first does not arise.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes): Perhaps I may address myself to the five questions—I think there were five—which the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) put to me. I think we discussed two of them fairly fully on Second Reading.
Let me first take the biggest point, a point of substance, on which I can clarify his mind a little. It concerns the balance of money outstanding—of the £45 million voted in the 1951 Act, which increased the previous amount of £15 million to £45 million. Under Clause 1 (3) the sum of money counting against the £45 million will remain under this arrangement, for purposes of calculation, as it is now; that is to say, only the capital sum, and not the capital sum plus interest, will be calculated against the £45 million.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me specifically when the £45 million will run out. It is a little difficult to answer because we are working all the time on forward contracts but, broadly, I think we shall want further authority from the House for additional expenditure in 1956–57. In other words, we have about

18 months to go at the present rate of expenditure—and I stress to the right hon. Gentleman that our rate of expenditure on this score against the £45 million will not be increased by the terms of the Bill.
4.0 p.m.
The other point which the right hon. Member asked was how this would affect the speed at which we went forward with rural water and sewerage schemes. As I said on Second Reading, the limiting factor in the amount we could spend each year on rural water and sewerage is the sum of capital grant which the Treasury makes towards those schemes, that is to say, for England and Wales about £5 million in respect of £17 million worth of work. It is the Treasury contribution which limits the amount we can spend more than the total capital expenditure involved—the £5 million rather than the £17 million. The effect of this provision is to require from the Treasury not a capital sum each year of £5 million or £6 million, but the amortised sum, the sum which is under discussion.
As I said, we have now got water supplies and sewerage on an ascending line and it is certainly the aim of the Department with which I am associated that we should keep them on that ascending line. Obviously, we shall be subjected to much less likelihood of any sudden need for economy reducing the amount available for a capital sum under this arrangement. We shall be drawing annually from the Treasury a very much smaller sum than we now require.
The right hon. Member repeated the question he asked on Second Reading, why we had chosen this method and this moment for choosing this method. I can only repeat what I said first, that this point was noticed during a review of Government expenditure last year and it was thought that, in view of the fact that during the last twenty years the contribution to rural water supplies and sewerage had risen from about £1 million a year to £8 million it was reasonable that the service should now be put into the same category as housing, education and things of that sort and financed on the basis of amortisation rather than by direct capital contribution.

Mr. G. Brown: What I asked was what was the compensating advantage for the extra expenditure of £27½ million? What do we get out of it?

Mr. Deedes: The immediate saving this year is about £6 million. Instead of a capital sum there will be the interest payments on the outstanding charges. The immediate saving will be about £6½ million, I think, but I should like to check that.

Mr. Brown: Are the Government saying that they so badly need an extra £6 million in the "kitty" for this year that they prefer to spend an extra £27½ million over the next thiry years in order to get £6 million in their hands this year?

Mr. Deedes: That is not what the right hon. Member asked. He asked where the saving would be made. I replied that it would be about £6½million. I think that those were the substance of the questions the right hon. Member asked me. He made much of the additional cost over thirty years on the money to be spent, but all money, including money for housing and other public services raised in this manner, attracts a rate of interest, which has to be paid. There is no difference in the cost here from the cost on items of expenditure by means of the Public Works Loan Board, or in any other way.

Mr. Victor Collins: Had the Parliamentary Secretary been present at Question Time today he would have heard an Answer by the Minister of Health about increased cost of building new hospitals arising from the increase in interest rates. The answer was quite correct, that there was no increased cost because that came out of revenue. The hon. Gentleman, therefore, is quite wrong in saying that all public expenditure of this kind must attract an interest charge.

Mr. Deedes: I do not think that the point made by the hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins) is quite relevant.
I should like to make this point before the right hon. Member for Belper asks me about it. The alteration in the rate of interest by ¼ per cent. will, of course, affect the figure which we discussed on the last occasion. The sum of £19 million, which is referred to in the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum, will be increased by about £1,100,000, but that is unlikely to remain a permanent and fixed rate for the thirty years we have under discussion.

Mr. Brown: Do I understand that we are being asked to pass a Bill for which the financial authority covers £27½ million and we are being told straight away, even before we start, that it is known that that amount will not be sufficient? Is not this further evidence that we ought to have the Financial Secretary to the Treasury with us? At what stage. Sir Charles, would I be in order in moving such a Motion as that referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher)? The Financial Secretary alone knows about these things.

The Chairman: I could not commit myself in advance, but I certainly cannot accept such at Motion now.

Mr. Deedes: The right hon. Member for Belper should consider that on Second Reading I gave the House certain financial information about this Bill and it seems most important that on this occasion up-to-date information should be given to the Committee. I anticipated a request by the right hon. Member and was disappointed with him when he did not make that request. I anticipated a request from him for information on this point and it is fair that it should be given to the Committeee. The sum is about £1,100,000 and that is an estimate on the £19 million mentioned in the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum. I hope that the right hon. Member will concede that the points he made have been met.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I do not think that anyone in the Committee will agree for a moment that the Minister has met the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). I listened carefully to the five questions which my right hon. Friend put and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has answered, or even attempted to answer, more than one.
The reasons are obvious to the Committee: the hon. Gentleman cannot answer, because it does not lie within his knowledge or competence to answer those questions. They can only be answered by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think it is a great affront to the Committee that we do not have a Treasury representative present when there is a Bill before the Committee dealing with nothing but finance and local authorities. I


think it particularly insulting to the Committee that we are asked to debate it in circumstances in which the Committee knows perfectly well that consideration of this Bill will be followed immediately by consideration of a Bill of which the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is in charge, and when he is within the precincts of the House. It is an intolerable situation.
My right hon. Friend made a very important speech and asked a number of very pertinent questions. We not merely did not get a satisfactory answer, but got no answer at all. I have a number of other questions to ask. Before I ask them, may I say that it is perfectly obvious to me that the Minister will not be able to answer them because they are questions which can be answered only by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Therefore, Sir Charles, I hope that if I or some of my hon. Friends have to repeat those questions at a later stage when the Financial Secretary arrives, you will not think that we are detaining the Committee unduly. We have a duty in this matter.
In the short speech he made, the Minister attempted to suggest that this method will save the Treasury money this year and, no doubt, a large sum in subsequent years. What is the position of the local authorities? We have heard not a word about that. The burden of these water supplies and sewage disposal arrangements falls upon the local authorities and boards. Under the 1944 Act, they were entitled to rely upon an undertaking from the Treasury that they would get certain contributions, and they have incurred commitments based upon those Treasury undertakings. They have borrowed some of the money and are having to pay rates of interest. They have had certain grants, but are now told that the grants towards capital obligations will be rescinded and will be replaced by some other kind of grant.
There is a vast difference in the accounts of any local authority between. capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. Revenue expenditure varies in accordance with the rateable value of a local authority, the valuation list, the value of hereditaments and the rate, but capital expenditure is quite different and the accounts kept by borough treasurers

and the treasurers of water supply undertakings are very complicated.
There are some questions I want to ask the Minister, but I am sure he will not be able to tell us the answers. I hope very much that someone has sent for the Financial Secretary, but we have not heard whether that has been done. It is surprising that nobody responds to assure us on that, but let us hope that the Financial Secretary will come. If the Treasury is to save money, how much of the money that it saves will fall upon the local authorities? What will happen to the money which has been borrowed by local authorities, either from the Public Works Loan Board or, as some of them may well have borrowed it, from outside sources? How will the repayments be dealt with? Is it really suggested that, in future, the Treasury can make a revenue payment under the Bill and treat it as a capital repayment in respect of a capital obligation? Is that the kind of financial arrangement that this Government have now descended to? It makes nonsense of all the ordinary accepted canons of administration both by the central Government and by local government.
I want, next, to raise this curious question of the rate of interest. I understood the Minister to say that since the date of introduction of the Bill, the cost involved upon the Treasury—that is, the estimated expenditure referred to in the Memorandum—has risen from £19 million to £20¼ million. May we have some further explanation of that? Is it suggested that that is due to the recent increase in the Bank Rate? Is it due to the recently announced increase in the rate of interest payments on loans granted by the Public Works Loan Board?
Surely the Minister knows perfectly well that that increased rate of interest does not apply to past loans; it applies only to future loans. Any local authorities who borrowed in the past at the old rate of interest continue to pay that old rate of interest during the currency of the loan. We should be told how much of this money has been borrowed at the old rate of interest.
How many local authorities find themselves in the predicament that, having relied upon the Government undertaking to make a capital contribution, they postponed their borrowing at the old rate of interest, knowing that they would get their


capital contribution, but now find that they must borrow at a higher interest rate? Are they to be penalised because they waited until they actually wanted the money? Must they suffer from this comic change in the arrangements which, for a quite unexplained reason, the Government have thought necessary to introduce and to commend to the Committee without any explanation whatever?

Mr. G. Brown: The First Lord of the Admiralty is here.

Mr. Fletcher: We are very glad to see the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Mr. Brown: But he is not the man we want.

Mr. Fletcher: I have no doubt that the First Lord of the Admiralty, even though he cannot help us with matters relating to the Navy, can help us with matters relating to rural water supplies and sewerage. At any rate, we are getting nearer the mark.
We do not expect the junior Minister to help us on this matter. It is, presumably, too much to expect the Chancellor of the Exchequer to attend, but I suppose there is some relationship between the First Lord of the Admiralty and rural water supplies. Is that really the best that the Government can do? I have never known a Government treat the Committee with such contempt in the matter of the Ministers they send into the Chamber.
4.15 p.m.
I have put two questions which occur to me on a cursory examination of the Bill. I do not pretend to be an expert on this matter, but from the questions which my right hon. Friend has asked and the halting, hesitating and unsatisfactory reply which he received, it is obvious to me, as it will be to a number of my hon. Friends, that we cannot proceed satisfactorily with the Committee stage of the Bill unless we get sensible, authoritative answers to these financial questions, as we are entitled to have, so that we can understand the Bill.

Mr. G. Brown: May I ask you whether at this stage, Sir Charles, you will accept the Motion, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again?"

The Chairman: I am unwilling to accept that Motion.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: On a point of order. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not present to deal with financial questions, but there are several Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, who, as "usual channels," are, no doubt, particularly fitted to carry questions of water supply or sewerage. In the absence of any other officer of the Treasury, would it be competent to ask them and would it be within order that they should reply?

The Chairman: Both things would be quite in order.

Mr. Denys Bullard: I am greatly interested in rural water supplies and sewerage and I thought there was some point in what the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said about the small schemes and maintaining them by lump sum payment, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary had said would be done for the still smaller schemes. I thought that there was a case for the extension of the limit to above the figure of £1,000 which has been referred to. But during our discussions on the Bill, both on Second Reading and in Committee, I have been greatly confused by what the right hon. Member has said, and I should like to make sure that my idea of the financial arrangements was right.
So far as I can see, the main development over recent years with regard to rural water supply and sewerage schemes has been an increase in the number of schemes which have been put into effect. That must be right. I understood from my hon. Friend's answer the other evening that the main obstacle, which originally was shortage of labour and materials, had now disappeared and was rather a financial obstacle.
When my hon. Friend answered late the other evening, he pointed out that expenditure in England and Wales had risen from £12 million in 1953–54 to £14 million in the following year and £17 million this year, which is a trend we are all anxious to see continued. I do not know the sewerage schemes total figure for 1953–54, but there appears to have been an even greater increase proportionately. In 1954–55 the figure was £7 million, and this year 1955–56, it is to be £9 or £9½ million, which is a considerable and welcome increase.
I should like to take up the right hon. Member for Belper on his English. He


said that the point of the scheme was not to bring sewerage to the rural areas but to get it away from them. But the point of the scheme is to bring sewerage to the rural areas and to take sewage away from them. I thought it proper to point that out to the right hon. Gentleman, who is always so meticulous in these matters.
If the payment of lump sums by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has reached the stage where the Ministry thinks that the right method is not to make lump sum payments of these larger amounts but to raise the money on a loan basis, I cannot but think that that is a proper and reasonable thing to do. I cannot conceive of any development in the countryside which is more suitable for financing on a loan basis than the provision of rural water supplies and sewerage schemes.
I should have thought that these were provisions which would benefit our heirs and successors for generations to come and that it was, therefore, very proper to spread the financing over the years. I cannot see why there should be all the objection to the Clause which we have heard expressed today and on Second Reading.
I take great comfort from the fact that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government said on Second Reading that the Bill would provide more flexibility in making financial arrangements with the local authorities and to that extent must ease and not hinder our progress. The Bill is designed to make it possible for more rural water supply and sewerage schemes to be approved. That is certainly what all of us who live in the rural areas want.

Mr. J. McInnes: While my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) regretted the absence of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I must also regret the absence of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Joint Under-Secretaries of State, because I must say with all due respect to the Lord Advocate that they are more conversant with the structure of Scottish local government and its financial relationship with the central Government than is the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
I assume, however, that the Lord Advocate is aware that the Scottish local

authorities are opposed to the Bill. They are opposed to it for a variety of reasons. I do not want to enumerate them all, but I should like to refer to at least two of them. In the first instance, the local authorities express their opposition because of the additional administrative work which will be involved in accounting for the numerous grants towards revenue expenditure. Secondly, they assert quite emphatically that local authorities will incur greater expenditure by way of higher borrowing since they will have to raise loans for the total capital outlay that is involved.
I should like to place the statement made by the Scottish local authorities against the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government when he said, on 22nd February, that the Bill
… will make no difference whatever financially to the local authorities.
In the same speech the hon. Gentleman said:
… I am anxious that there should be no suggestion that the local authorities pay any more. The Bill will put nothing at all on the local rates."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1227.]
That is not the feeling of Scottish local authorities and, as far as I can understand my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper, it is not the feeling of the English local authorities.
Undoubtedly, additional burdens will fall upon local authorities apart from interest charges. Let us assume that a local authority is involved in capital expenditure of £1 million for some scheme. Normally, it would borrow £500,000 and be given a grant of £500,000. Now it has to borrow the full £1 million and face the cost of the fees, Stamp Duty and other items. The fees alone at 4s. per cent. would mean an additional £1,000.
I do not know the views of the Lord Advocate. Even at this stage I should like him to intervene to indicate whether or not he is conscious of the opposition of Scottish local authorities. I hope that he recognises that the next Bill on the Order Paper, the Public Works Loans Bill, also places an intolerable burden on local authorities, because it follows the same lines as the Bill which we are now discussing. I assert, as I have frequently asserted before, that if we have many Bills of this kind it will inevitably lead to a complete breakdown of the


finances of local authorities. I hope that at this stage the Lord Advocate will express his opinion on the views of the Scottish local authorities.

Captain J. A. L. Duncan: I welcome the presence of the Lord Advocate to answer any complaint that there may be from Scotland about the Bill. The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) and the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) threatened to create an awful row about the Bill, but the right hon. Member for Belper seems to have frightened away all the ex-Cabinet Ministers on his own side of the Committee. I do not know whether it was the right hon. Member's week-end speech that frightened his friends and enemies, but I do not think that he has very much right to complain about the absence of a junior Minister on this side of the Committee when there is not a single ex-Cabinet Minister on his side.

Mr. G. Brown: Do I understand that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is advancing the doctrine that it is the business of ex-Ministers on this side of the Committee to attend in order to carry the Bills of the present Government because their own Ministers are unable or unwilling to do so?

Captain Duncan: No. The point is that the right hon. Gentleman is taking this Bill so seriously—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—yet not one of the right hon. Gentleman's ex-Cabinet Minister friends or emenies is here to support him.

Mr. Brown: We do not want the Bill.

Captain Duncan: It does not lie with the right hon. Member to complain and allege that there are not Ministers on this side of the Committee capable of carrying the Bill through the Committee stage.
This Bill applies to Scotland and I want to raise one or two points which have been put to me by the Association of County Councils in Scotland. Unlike the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes), my reading of the letter from which I think the hon. Member has been quoting does not make me believe that the local authorities oppose the Bill.

Mr. McInnes: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should read the second paragraph.

Captain Duncan: I have read it very carefully. If I read the whole letter I might be here for half an hour. The local authorities are very anxious that the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on 22nd February will apply to Scotland and will be carried out to the letter in Scotland. That statement was:
… I am anxious that there should be no suggestion that the local authorities pay any more. The Bill will put nothing at all on the local rates."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1227.]
Does that apply to Scotland? That is all that I want to know.
The Association of County Councils has made two or three points. It says, first, that there is a possibility that the local authority which wants to carry out a £1 million scheme, and borrows half of the million, will have to pay 4s. per cent. borrowing charges if it borrows from the Public Works Loan Board and may have other expenditure if it borrows that money from other sources. Is that covered or is it not? Is there to be additional expense for the local authority or not?
4.30 p.m.
Then it says that, if the money is borrowed in stages as the work proceeds, the interest rates may rise although the financial arrangements between the Department and the local authority may have been come to some time before. Are the interest rates actual rates or are they notional rates fixed before a scheme starts? Will they be allowed for in the Government contribution?
Lastly, if the contribution is to be paid half yearly instead of every month as at present there may be extra borrowing in between periods. Therefore, in that way there will be extra expense to the local authorities. It is on those three points that the Association seeks an assurance, and I hope my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate will be able to answer, because in the last few years we in Scotland have got on with rural water supplies and rural sewerage schemes. It is on the right lines on which we are moving and we do not want it to be stopped for reasons of shortage of capital, difficulties in raising capital or for any other reason.
We want this work to go on. In my county of Angus a large number of water


supply schemes are being undertaken with even bigger ones projected in the next year or two. We do not want them to be held up, and I hope the Lord Advocate will be able to give the assurances for which I have asked.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: I hope that the Lord Advocate will be able to say a word or two in reply to the Association of County Councils in Scotland. Reference has already been made to the letter which every Scottish Member has received from the Association. It is clear from that letter that there was no adequate discussion with the Association, otherwise it would have asked the Minister at the discussion the questions which it is now asking in this letter.
I spent some years at the Scottish Office, as a junior Minister. We never introduced a Bill into this House that had such an effect upon local authorities or was so important to them as this is without having adequate discussions with the local authorities. I should like to know to what extent the local authorities were consulted before this Bill was introduced.
Some hon. Members might think that this Association is only one of the associations for local authorities in Scotland, but it is the only one interested in rural water supplies and rural sewerage. This Association represents all the authorities that are affected by the provisions of this Bill. It is clear that there was no adequate discussion with its representative, and we should like to know whether there was any discussion at all.
Might I mention one or two points which the Association has asked to be considered in connection with Clause 1? It says:
There will be additional administrative work involved in claiming and accounting for the numerous grants towards revenue expenditure.
We are asking, is that true? I think it is bound to be true, but we have to be told by the Government whether it is or not. If it is true, then the Association is right in the second point, namely:
Such additional work, falling both on the central and local authorities, does not appear to be consistent with the general principles of the Report of the Local Government Manpower Committee (Scotland).
What is the use of setting up a committee and getting recommendations from

it as to the means of bringing about economies in central Government or local administration if the Government are forthwith to introduce legislation which runs absolutely counter to the recommendations of the Local Government Manpower Committee (Scotland)? We ought to be told why that is so.
The third point made by the Association is this:
The Government will be called upon to spend more money since interest charges will be incurred.
That is what we argued during the Second Reading of the Bill.
The fourth point is:
Local authorities will incur greater expenses by way of higher borrowing fees since they will have to raise loans for the total capital outlay involved.
That is the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes). If that is right, the Parliamentary Secretary is not quite correct when he says this will impose no additional burden on the local authorities. He may very well say that the burden is not great, but these local authorities are not able to bear great burdens, which is why we had to legislate to provide for help towards water supplies and sewerage services.
The Association further states:
Complications will arise from changes in interest rates during the constructional period.
That may not seem to be very important, but I think it may be of considerable importance. Those schemes are under construction for very long periods. Hitherto, local authorities in Scotland, in carrying through those constructional schemes, have had payments to account several times in the course of construction. I wonder whether the Government imagine that the local authorities will borrow money at several periods during the construction of a scheme. Since the Government have altered the interest rates about five times in the last three years, and some of those schemes take three years to complete—I can think of one that has taken five years to complete, the Daer water scheme, which does not come under this Act but which was started by the Labour Government under Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, an Act discontinued by the present Government—there are bound to be complications, as the Association says, arising from this change-over. We want to know what the position is.


The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South Angus (Captain Duncan) mentioned other difficulties referred to by the Association in its letter. I hope we shall have a full reply. I think I heard the hon. and gallant Gentleman say, "So do I." If he does not get a suitable reply I hope he will join with some of us on this side of the Committee who propose to take appropriate action if there is no suitable reply to our questions.
The Government have got themselves into an awful muddle over this matter. It is not at all surprising that, despite all the blandishments that have been offered, the Financial Secretary has not yet appeared. In the Second Reading debate, the Parliamentary Secretary will remember that many of us chided him about this Government forcing local authorities to provide rural water supplies on hire purchase, and I myself made the point that my constituent, Mrs. Brown, was having her freedom to buy her television set on hire-purchase terms restricted because the Treasury were compelling local authorities to have water supplies on hire purchase.
Two days later the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the Box opposite and imposed further restrictions upon hire purchase. Yet his Department supports this Bill, which takes hire purchase into a sphere where it has not been hitherto. So we do not know what the Government want, and although the name of the Financial Secretary is on this Bill, which is largely a financial Measure, it is not surprising that he has not come along today. How can we expect the Financial Secretary to justify this Bill, which advocates hire purchase of things that nobody seems to want, when the Chancellor has said that we must restrict it?
The local authorities do not want it, nobody wants it. The Government, with an income of a little over £4,000 million a year, cannot afford £17 million for rural water supplies. Yet they can afford to see tens of millions of pounds being spent on commercial television and the like—for whether it is done by capital payments or on hire purchase does not matter to them—but they are not willing to find £17 million, £18 million or £20 million a year to provide adequate rural water supplies. They say, "You must take this on hire purchase. We shall pay for it over

the next twenty-five to thirty years." It is not good enough and, unless we get a much more satisfactory answer than we have had hitherto, some of us will feel disposed to show our opposition to this Clause.

Mr. John Baldock: I want to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary how this Bill is likely to affect the payment of grants to rural water supplies in England which come within the rather unusual category of the rural district of Market Harborough in my constituency.
The problem is that about half this rural district has no water supply, and that half is developing into an arid area—or whatever the opposite of an oasis is—because it is a dry pocket in the middle of a considerable surrounding area amounting to counties, all of which have either had a water supply for a considerable time, are just getting water, or are just about to get it.
The unfortunate half of this rural district, which is an important agricultural area, will be left with no possibility of water supplies other than the promise of connection to a large scheme known as the River Dove scheme, which, on the most optimistic forecast, will not materialise for five or six years, and will probably be twice as long, because it has been anticipated for seven or eight years and has not yet been begun.
It appears likely, therefore, that this unfortunate area will remain without any supply of water, with all the extremely uncomfortable conditions which that entails, such as schools without sanitation or water, houses the occupants of which have to dip in brooks yards away, which dry up into pools of dirty water with which they have to bath or else use water carted by the local authority in a tank. And all these conditions are in a district where the whole of the surrounding area has a proper water supply.
It is not surprising that the unfortunate residents of that area, as well as the farmers who want to turn over to T.T. milk production, are concerned about the position, and at the idea that there is no apparent possibility of getting any water, or even a faint hope or promise for at least six or seven years, and probably considerably longer.
4.45 p.m.
The only way by which water could be provided easily, either immediately or in the near future, would be if the network of distribution of the River Dove works were to be put in this half of the rural district now, with a local water supply which is said to be available and which has been investigated thoroughly by the surveyor of the local authority, being connected to it for the time being. The trouble is that temporary works would have to be carried out to provide water for this network until the River Dove scheme is connected to it.
Although such works to provide temporary water for the scheme would not require a great outlay, unless the Government are able to make a grant for a sparsely populated rural district such as this one, it would be impossible to carry them out because that would impose a high rate on an area of low assessment, which cannot be highly rated since it is principally agricultural.
I hope it may be possible for my hon. Friend to look into this matter, and that this Bill may facilitate such an operation, so that, for a comparatively small sum, this large area could be provided with water under the terms of this Bill until the major scheme is connected to the temporary one.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I should like to follow the example of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Harborough (Mr. Baldock) by introducing a constituency point. In my constituency there are still many parishes without a piped water supply, and many schools without a proper sewerage system and without piped water. I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary of the large village of Stithians, which has a large all-age school, where the local education authority is unable to improve the offices properly because the position of the school is such that an independent sewerage system could not be put in, even if water were available. Therefore piped water must come first and the sewerage after. I am not quite sure of the exact number of children in the school, but it is about 120.
As this is a debate on a Bill which is largely financial, it is opportune to consider carefully just how capably a provident person provides when dealing with

his own finances, especially if they are limited. He does not get things on hire purchase if he can buy them outright, and I always thought that every local authority was considered to be a wise and provident authority if it made provision each year for small capital sums to be provided out of revenue. Indeed, this Bill exemplifies that argument because it specifies that £1,000 may be spent out of revenue on any capital scheme. The absurdity is that the sum of £1,000 is altogether too low. A local authority may find itself in possession of such balances that it would prefer to spend £2,000, £3,000, £4,000, or £5,000 on the scheme in order to clear it out of the way and have no ensuing financial burden.
I have made a few calculations. This Bill specifies that an additional £19 million is to be spent in England and Wales on interest on borrowed money, and £8½million in Scotland. From what the Parliamentary Secretary said earlier, we assume that there may be additions to those figures because of the rise in the Bank Rate. I calculate that about 5,000 school places a year can be provided for £1 million, so that for £19 million we could have 95,000 school places in England and Wales and, for £8½million, 42,500 places in Scotland, making a total of 137,500. Assuming, according to the Minister's Second Reading speech, that the sum is to be spread over 30 years, it averages about 4,500 school places per year.
This sum is really being thrown away. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) said, the country's annual budget is about £4,000 million. The Chancellor is attempting to save a very small sum in relation to that figure to ease his Budget this year. He will not ease the Budget in the coming years because he will not be in his present office.
An interesting fact which must strike all hon. Members—it is also a serious one—is that for every £100 spent on sewerage and water schemes we have under the Bill to find an extra £67 8s. or perhaps £70 in view of the increase in the Bank Rate. That is absurd. It is bad administration and bad finance. The Government claim that they are provident and that they have saved the country from ruin, and yet they cannot find this paltry capital sum but must resort to hire purchase.

Mr. Mitchison: There is one question that I want to ask at the risk of annoying some of my Scottish hon. Friends. It emerged on Second Reading that the average rate of grant in Scotland was about 60 per cent. of the cost of schemes and in England about one-third; that is, the Scots are getting from public funds about twice as much in proportion as the poor English are getting.
I wonder if the reason for that is that there is often a county council grant in England and perhaps no corresponding grant in Scotland. I believe the county council grant is often of about the same amount as the Government grant. If that is the system, it is a thoroughly bad one. County councils are already finding it none too easy, if not impossible, to keep their rates down, and the county council rates fall in the long run on the county district authorities concerned with the rural schemes. Therefore, to rely by way of a defence on the county grant is, financially, nonsense, and it is nonsense of the peculiar Treasury kind that inures to the benefit of the Treasury.
I hope we shall be told that the disparity is recognised, and that at long last some measure of justice will be done to England by allowing a corresponding contribution from public funds to English schemes. This is, of course, a question that can only properly be answered by the Treasury. In the continued absence of the Financial Secretary, our only hope seems to be a break in the conventional silence of one of the Lords Commissioners, who would, no doubt, tell us all about it. Failing that, I suppose we shall have to have a combined answer in chorus from the two Government representatives present—the Lord Advocate and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
The next question that I want to ask is one which remained unanswered throughout the Second Reading debate. I am going to try to help the Parliamentary Secretary by suggesting an answer. My question is "Why has the Bill been brought in?", or, more simply and more accurately, "Why does the Bill contain this one operative Clause?" I asked the question, and I was told that the reason was that we were spending so much a year on these schemes that we had to spread the payment in this way and equalise it with housing and education.
It seems to me to be pure nonsense to suggest that the extent of the expenditure on matters of this sort is comparable with what is spent, and rightly spent, on housing and education. The fact of the matter is that there was a review, and some person with an over-tidy mind thought that it ought to be put on a yearly basis. This reminds me of the old lady who was able to pay for the wireless set but felt bound to buy the television set on hire purchase. Surely the Treasury could manage this much. There must be some other reason.
I am a very simple-minded person, and I think I have found the reason. Let us look at the amounts that are going into the next Budget. They were given by the Parliamentary Secretary. On the old basis the figure was £8 million this year; on the new basis, if he passes the winning post in time, the figure may be only £1½ million. Is not what is happening—I am just suggesting the answer to the Parliamentary Secretary—that in order to keep a little more up his sleeve this year, when there may be a General Election, perhaps to distribute it elsewhere, the Chancellor is introducing the Bill to save this immediate expenditure? I suggest that he is mortgaging the future to have a little more to play with for General Election year purposes.
I will be even more unkind, and suggest that he is really doing it at the expense of local authorities. I will tell the Committee the reason why I say it is at the expense of local authorities. I pointed out to the Parliamentary Secretary on Second Reading that one of the subsections of the Clause was a very remarkable one in that it obliged people who had been promised a lump sum to accept annual payments instead, whether they wanted to or whether they did not. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) has pointed out that a lump sum payment might suit local authorities much better if they were using a reserve or for some reason of that kind.
I hoped that some regard might be paid to the sanctity of Government promises—I suppose that is too much to expect from the Conservative Party—and that we might have had an Amendment to make this somewhat shattering change at least depend upon the consent of the local authority concerned. However, that has not happened, and I am compelled to


come to the conclusion that all this is really at the expense of the local authorities, in so far as it is not simply a mortgage of the present to be paid off in the future.

5.0 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. W. R. Milligan): It might be convenient for the Committee if I intervened at this stage to attempt to deal with one or two of the matters which have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee arising out of the questions which have been asked by certain Scottish local authorities.

Mr. William Ross: On points of law?

The Lord Advocate: Not primarily on points of law, but I might at the same time deal with one or two.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) asked whether there had been any meetings with the local authorities. The position about that is that certain informal meetings took place, and at those meetings the local authorities said that they wished to make representations after seeing the terms of the Bill. Following on the publication of the Bill, certain recommendations were made at an interview, and thereafter a letter, to which reference has been made, was circulated by the local authorities.

Mr. McInnes: Will the Lord Advocate define what he means by informal meetings? Either the local authorities met representatives of the Scottish Office at Edinburgh, or they did not. Was it merely a telephone conversation?

The Lord Advocate: I imagine that it was a meeting in Edinburgh, but I will have that information before I sit down.
The second point raised by the hon. Member for Hamilton was the suggestion that the local authorities thought that more administrative work would be required of them in the event of the Bill being passed into law. That matter has been looked into, and the view which we take is that there will certainly not be more and might be less, because certain calculations, which under the present procedure have to be made about work done and the like, will not have to be made in the future, and there will generally be

payments of a more even nature. We are satisfied that there will certainly be no material extra work to be done, if any at all.
Another point raised by several hon. Members on both sides of the Committee was whether the cost of raising a loan, which was referred to as the 4s. per £100, would be met. Our position is that we divided that aspect of the matter into two parts, the first being present schemes which are in course of payment at the present moment, in respect of which any costs incurred would be met at the appropriate time by the Government, and the second being new schemes in respect of which the cost of 4s. per cent. will form part of the capital cost and rank for grant. I remind the Committee that in neither case will these costs rank towards the £20 million, in other words, that the ceiling will not be affected by the payment of these costs.
Another point made by hon. Members was about the variations of the loan charges; that is to say, where in the course of a scheme various advances are made to the local authority, the rate of interest may vary during that period. I quite agree that it may vary up or down. The view that we take is that the rate of interest, so far as the Government are concerned, should be the rate of interest in operation at the commencement of the scheme. If the rate goes up, then one side suffers slightly, if it goes down, then the other, each taking the rough with the smooth.
The next question related to the six-monthly payments instead of payment at shorter periods. I think that this particularly applies to Scotland, but when my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government speaks later he will explain any distinction that there is in all these matters between Scotland and England. So far as I have gone at the moment, I do not think that there is any distinction whatsoever, but the matter was raised by Scottish local authorities, and that is why I am attempting to deal with it.
In Scotland, local authorities have been accustomed to receive payments at slightly shorter notice than have, I understand, authorities in England. The local authorities in Scotland are afraid that they may have to meet a contractor's bill before they have been able to make


arrangements for what I might call their chief loan, and that they will accordingly have to have a smaller, but immediate, loan to finance and meet the particular payment which is falling due. I can see the possibility that such a situation might arise, but I can assure Members of the Committee that if it did we would see that an interim payment was made to tide the local authority over in respect of the immediate payment which was required, and so no additional borrowing would be necessary.
I think that the last point which was raised by hon. Members was the query as to whether there would be periodical payments during the scheme, or if payments would be made at the end of the scheme. I can give an absolute and unqualified undertaking that in the ordinary case they would be made as the work went on. The one possible exception would be where a scheme was not very large, and an arrangement was made, at the request of the contractor, that the whole payment should be made at the end. In such circumstances local authorities would not have to borrow, and accordingly no payment would fall to be made until the end of the scheme.
I think that I have answered the points that have been made. In reply to the earlier query of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Mclnnes), I can now say that I have been informed that the beginning of the conversation was on the telephone but there was, as I told him, on 28th March, an interview which was followed by the letter to which reference has been made.

Mr. Ross: Can the Lord Advocate tell us whether local authorities approve of the Bill, whether they wanted the Bill, or would they rather not have had it?

The Lord Advocate: I think that the local authorities' letter, of which, no doubt, the hon. Member has a copy, speaks for itself. It is wrong to say that the local authorities opposed the Bill. They wanted certain assurances, in view of the terms of the Bill, and I hope that, having got those assurances, they will not only not oppose it, but will heartily welcome it.

Mr. Ross: On the point of the meaning of words—I prefer the Lord Advocate's opinion on matters like that

rather than on social and political matters—the letter says:
 The underlying purpose of the Bill is to enable the Government to switch over ….
There can be no doubt that the present method of payment of grants by lump sum payments is much to be preferred by local authorities …

Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Would the Lord Advocate elucidate this point? I understood him to say that, if it became necessary, interim payments would be made. Would he indicate to the Committee under what authority those payments would be made?

The Lord Advocate: Certainly.
The hon. and learned Member has inquired about interim payments, which is a particularly Scottish point. That was to meet the exceptional case where the local authority—as it now has to do at the beginning of a scheme, and in the case of a scheme going on when the Bill becomes law—has to make arrangements for borrowing to finance a scheme. The authority will not actually need the money until payment is required by the contractor, whoever that happens to be. It may be that in exceptional cases, before the authority can make its arrangement with the loan authority, the contractor's account falls due. The local authorities, as I understand it, were afraid that they would have to borrow especially to pay that account. What I said at the time was that we would meet them by an interim payment which would avoid the borrowing altogether.

Mr. E. G. Willis: 1 should like to clear up the point made by the Lord Advocate about rates of interest. If I understood him correctly, he said that the rate of interest which the authorities would pay would be that which was in operation at the time the loan or scheme was approved. That raises what appears to be a rather interesting point. Obviously, it would be in the interest of the local authorities to have the scheme approved with the higher rates of interest to cover them against the eventuality of falling rates of interest.
On the other hand, it would be in the interest of the Government to approve the scheme at the time when the rates of interest were low, because that rate would be the fixed one. I should have thought that if the local authority applies for


approval and sanction at a time when rates of interest are high, there will be a tendency on the part of the Secretary of State to delay it for a while unless the Government are to sanction works of capital expenditure precisely at the time when they are trying to follow a policy of reducing works of capital expenditure. That is a peculiar position for the Government to place themselves in if they wish to play fairly with the local authorities. I wish that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said more about it.

The Lord Advocate: It would be extremely difficult to take a rate of interest other than the rate of interest which was in force when the loan was first made. It is apparently suggested that, somehow or other, the Government should use their influence to take a date when the rate of interest was high to suit their own book. I do not think that it is open for hon. Members first to say that the sum is so incredibly small that the Government might as well pay capital sums straight out and then to suggest that the Government will regulate the finances of the country by taking into consideration a slight benefit by entering into these loans on a certain date. It is essential to take the rough with the smooth.

Mr. T. Fraser: The Lord Advocate said that the meeting with the Scottish local authority association took place on 28th March. He omitted to tell us the year. He may have meant 28th February of this year. If he did, that was most improper, because the local authorities were then having their meeting some days after the Second Reading of the Bill. Scottish local authorities are accustomed to better and more courteous treatment than that.

Mr. Deedes: Perhaps I might now respond to some of the points made by English and Welsh Members as opposed to those made by the Scottish Members to whom my right hon. and learned Friend has replied. I should like to add one point that I overlooked in reply to the earlier remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) about very small grants and the sum of £1,000. I am prepared to have a look at that. When the sum becomes £1,150 and it is on the wrong side of

the line and therefore has to be spread over a period of 30 years, that certainly merits examination. I should like to consider that.
The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) asked two principal questions which, I gathered, he thought I would not be in a position to answer. I may not be able to satisfy him, but I will do my best. The first was about the position of the local authorities. Will they, or will they not, be worse off under the scheme? We stressed on Second Reading, and I want to stress it now in detail, that financially the local authorities will not be worse off, principally because the interest that they are required to pay will be covered by Government grants, though it is true that they will have to raise more money.
In other words, at the end of the 30-year period they will not have paid any more than they would under the old system. There was an additional point made by my right hon. and learned Friend about Scottish authorities and borrowing fees. The matter was mentioned by the hon Member for Islington, East. Any additional charge under that head—this applies not only to Scotland but to England and Wales—will be met by the Government at the appropriate time. On that point of detail I can say that the local authorities should not suffer any financial change at all under the new system.
Perhaps the Committee will bear with me if I explain the position. At present we pay the whole amount of grant when a scheme is finished. On a very big scheme we pay about half the sum half way through. Now nothing will be paid until the end of the scheme, but with a big scheme involving two or three con tracts the first payment will be made on completion of the first contract. As soon as the first third of the scheme is completed the payment will begin. There fore, substantially, the position should be the same as now in the ultimate outcome.
5.15 p.m.
The hon. Member for Islington, East also wanted further estimates involving the new rate of interest. He wanted to know the effect of the extra 1/4 per cent. Perhaps I might take the same parallel as that I took on Second Reading, working it out from a small sum to a larger sum for the benefit of the Committee. At the


time of the Second Reading the equivalent half-yearly payment on £100 at 3¾ per cent, was £2 15s. 9¾d. and it will now be £2 17s. 6½d., the difference amounting to 3s. 6d. a year.

Mr. G. Brown: There must be a far thing in it somewhere.

Mr. Deedes: Perhaps I should say approximately 3s. 6d. a year. When I spoke before, the aggregate of such payment over 30 years was £167 8s. It will now be £172 12s. 6d. An increase which was £67 8s. for every £100 becomes £72 12s. 6d. The final breakdown, or rather the last figure in the calculation, is that the increase on £27,600,000 is there fore £20,044,500, and before it was £18,600,000. I hope that the hon. Gentle man will accept those figures as providing the details for which he asks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Bullard) asked about recent progress in water and sewer age work. Perhaps I can assist by giving the figures for the last three years of payments in respect of the two. In the financial year 1953–54 the amount spent—the total amount; this has no bearing on grants—was £7,200,000 on water and £5,250,000 on sewerage, a total of £12,500,000. In the financial year 1954–55, £7 million was spent on water and £7million on sewerage, a total of £14 mil lion. The figures at that point were equal. In the forthcoming financial year, 1955–56, we estimate that £7,500,000 to £8million will be spent on water and £9million to £9,500,000 will be spent on sewerage, a total of £17 million. It will be seen that work on water has slowed down and that on sewerage has been increased.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) made the point that this policy accorded ill with the recent steps taken on the subject of hire-purchase. The object of the restrictions on hire-purchase was to damp down demand. There is no question of damping down demand for rural water and sewerage. I have already explained that there is no desire to do that. In fact, we intend to spend rather more. Far from damping down on rural water and sewerage, we are going to spend more than we have spent in previous years. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will accept that there is some difference in principle between the two things.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Baldock) asked about the Market Harborough water scheme, about which we have been in correspondence. I can make two points about that which I hope will satisfy him. The first is that the River Dove scheme was approved two months ago and will take five to six years to complete. The second is that we are offering the rural district council a grant towards an interim measure to serve until the River Dove scheme is in operation.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) spoke about the disparity in the rate of grant as between Scotland and England. I admit that this is perhaps a point which would bear looking into, though I am in this difficulty that I am not answerable for what Scottish water schemes the Scottish Office sees fit to make grants to. However, I will look into the point, and if I can give the hon. and learned Gentleman an answer which satisfies the South of the Border, I will do my best to do so.
As far as I am able, I have met nearly all the points that have been raised on both sides of the Committee, and I hope that that fact will go some way, though I realise that it will not go all the way, towards satisfying the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. G. Brown: As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government so fairly says, he has done what he can to answer the points raised. But the fact remains that he has been unable to answer any one of them. That has not been due to any lack of willingness on his part, but to the fact that he is not in a position to answer them. I am not complaining about his attempt to do so. It was a most gallant, as well as a very pleasing and lucid attempt. It is not his fault if he has to deliver a brief on behalf of an absent Minister who, at the moment, is lurking in the dungeons of the corridors down below.
I should think that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury must be having a most nerve-wracking time. He cannot be sure whether, if he puts his head through the door, he will be nabbed for this Bill or will be nabbed for the next one. I hope that the Lords Commissioners to the Treasury are organising a good kind of relay system in order to make quite sure


that the hon. Gentleman gets the tip in due course. This unwillingness of the Financial Secretary to be present is the most outrageous case of contempt for the House that I have yet seen in my 10 years or so in it.
Every single hon. Member who has spoken has prefaced his remarks by saying, "I want to ask some financial questions on what is a financial Bill," but, despite every request that has been made, the Minister has obstinately stayed away from what is his first duty to this Committee. I was always told by old Parliamentarians that the first duty of a Minister was to be in the Chamber when business affecting his Department was under consideration, but this Minister, who would not even get up on the Money Resolution and who had literally to be dragged to his feet, has this time stayed away rather than run the risk of being questioned.
I see, looking through the door behind you, Sir Charles, that the hon. Gentleman is no longer lurking in the corridors below, but is in the ante-room outside. It is a pity that his courage which has brought him so far will not bring him through that door. It is quite clear that he is not going to come in, but is going to an ante-room even farther away. It was not the sight of him that we wanted, but the sound of his voice. The point is that he has put his hon. Friend in a most difficult position.
I originally asked the Parliamentary Secretary what financial compensating advantage the taxpayer or the Treasury—the two are really synonymous—was to obtain for the extra £27½ million, or more like £29 million, that we have to pay. The hon. Gentleman did not get my point. He assured me that the total amount of sewerage and water works done will be the same, that they will not be reduced by the extra costs. That I know, but somebody, either the over-tidy-minded gentleman to whom my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, went probing around over this, found that they could save £6 million in this year at the cost of spending £29 million in the next 30 years, and decided to do so.
The hon. Gentleman gaily avoided the question put to him by my hon. and learned Friend which was: Is it in fact the

Government's case that the basis for spending this extra £29 million is so as to be able to distribute £6 million in some way in the Budget? Is that the point? The hon. Gentleman cannot answer that. Of course he cannot. The only person who could answer it is a Treasury Minister. At various times during this debate the Government have sent in to look after us the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, one of the Joint Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. We have had a variety of Ministers coming in, but none of them could answer the point any more than can the hon. Gentleman.
Is the reason the Government are going to make up for an extra £29 million—£72 in every £100—of work done in order to be able to bring into this year's Budget £6 million to help the Chancellor to give something away for electioneering purposes? If that is the reason, it is a downright miserable and nasty one. If it is not, then why is it that we cannot get any answer out of them? The hon. Gentleman told us that the money was already voted under a Bill, and, in case the hon. Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude) was asking his question with a view to incorporating the answer in his regular article in the "Farmers' Weekly," let me point out that he cannot take credit for the money because it was voted by a Government of which he is not a supporter.
If the money is going to run out in a year's time—it cannot be 18 months, be cause the hon. Gentleman told his hon. Friend that he was going to increase the aid this year—then why did not the Government wait for a new Bill in order to vote more money before making the change? It would at least have been intelligible if we had had a Bill which voted more money for rural water and sewer age, and if the opportunity had been taken in that Bill to say that, in order to spend more money, we should change the basis. Even though that may not have seemed acceptable to some of us, at any rate the two things could have gone together. Instead, we are given this one-Clause Bill which the Ministers are not willing to defend in order to change the basis retrospectively in relation to some expenditure of public money which already is


nearly all expended. It does not make sense.
I can quite understand that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot give me a compensating advantage. This, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said, can only be de fended on the ground that it is a trick to get £6 million to play with this year, and the other side of the trick is that the £29 million must be taken away from the tax payers over the next 30 years in order to make that possible. That does not seem to me to be sensible government. It does not help the cause of rural water supplies and sewerage, and it is either a downright silly thing or a mean trick.
All that we have got out of this debate is a promise that the hon. Gentleman will review the £1,000, which he told us would be the limit under which these new arrangements would operate, with a view to putting it further up. I am very glad that he is going to do that, and I hope that he will put it up to some much more substantial figure, and not merely sufficiently to cover the odd £150 about which he spoke. I am bound to say that a Bill which adds—as the hon. Gentleman

now corrects his arithmetic—£20,024,000 to the cost of doing the same amount of work simply in order to get an extra £6 million to play with this year, seems to have no basis on which we can possibly support it.

5.30 p.m.

At one stage, when working out his figures, we got him down to the last farthing. If we said that this was a farthing-minded Government we should be about right. Trying to save a farthing here and there in order to be able to give something away is as far as they can get. We cannot possibly accept a position in which the cost of work in progress is increased by three quarters without any compensating increase in the amount of work done. We cannot accept a Bill of this kind, for which the Departmental Minister will not answer and, as a protest both against the Bill and the outrageous conduct with which the Financial Secretary has treated the Committee, we shall certainly divide against the Clause.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes, 182; Noes, 140.

Division No. 41.]
AYES
[5.31 p.m.


Aitken, W T.
Crowder, Petre (Rulslip—Northwood)
Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry


Alport, C. J. M.
Deedes, W. F.
Horobin, Sir Ian


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Digby, S. Wingfield
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)


Armstrong, C. W.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)


Assheton, Rt. Hn. R. (Blackburn,W.)
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Drewe, Sir C.
Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.


Baldwin, A. E.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Jremonger, T. L.


Barber, Anthony
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Wrwk &amp; Lgtn)
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)




Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Baiter, Sir Beverley
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Jones, A. (Hall Green)


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Errington, Sir Eric
Kerby, Capt. H. B.


Bevlns, J. R. (Toxteth)
Erroll, F. J.
Kerr, H. W.


Bishop, F. P.
Fell, A.
Lambert, Hon. G.


Black C W
Finlay, Graeme
Leather, E. H. C.


Bossom, Sir A. C.
Fisher, Nigel 
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.



Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
Foster, John
Linstead, Sir H. N. 


Brooman-White, R. C.
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.) 


Brown, Jack (Govan) 
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)
Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt Hon. P. G. T.
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.


Bullard, D. G.
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Longden, Gilbert 


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Cough, C. F. H.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Burden, F. F. A.
Gower, H. R.
Lucas-Tooth Sir Hugh


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Graham, Sir Fergus
McAdden, S.J.


Butler,Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)
Gresham Cooke, R.
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John


Campbell, Sir David 
Grimond, J. 
McLean, Neil (Inverness) 


Cary, Sir Robert
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)



Channon, H.
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Macmillan, Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)


Clarke, Col. Sir Ralph(East Grinstead)
Harrison, Col. J, H. (Eye)
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)


Clarke, Brig, Terence (Portstnth, W.)
Harvey, Air Cdre. A, V. (Macclesfd)
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)


Cole, Norman
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Marlowe, A. A. H.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Heath, Edward
Marples, A. E.


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Maude, Angus


Crouch, R. F.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.


Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Molson, A. H. E.




Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Rayner, Brig. R.
Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Heref'd)


Nabarro, C. D. N.
Redmayne, M.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Neave, Airey
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Remnant, Hon. P.
Thompson,Lt-Cdr.R.(Croydon,W.)


Nield, Basil (Chester)
Renton, D. L. M.
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Nugent, G. R. H.
Ridsdale, J. E.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Odey, G. W.
Robertson, Sir David
Turner, H. F. L.


O'Neill, Hon. Phelim(Co. Antrim, N.)
Roper, Sir Harold
Turton, R. H.


Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Vosper, D. F.


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Russell, R. S.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Page, R. G.
Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Schofield, Lt.- Col. W.
Wall, Major Patrick


Perkins, Sir Robert
Scott, Sir Donald
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Sharples, Maj. R. C.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Peyton, J. W. W.
Snadden, W. MoN.
Wellwood, W.


Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)


Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Stevens Geoffrey
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Pitman, I. J.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Wiliams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Powell, J. Enoch
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Studholme, H. G,
Woollam, John Victor


Raikes, Sir Victor
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)



Ramsden, J. E.
Sutcliffe, Sir Harold
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Oakshott and Mr. Wills.




NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Greenwood, Anthony
Oliver, G. H.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Owen, W. J.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Pannell, Charles


Benson, G.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Pargiter, G. A.


Beswick, F.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Paton, J.


Bing, G. H. C.
Hamilton, W. W.
Pearson, A.


Blackburn, F.
Hastings, S.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Blenkinsop, A.
Hayman, F. H.
Rankin, John


Blyton, W. R.
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)
Reeves, J.


Boardman, H.
Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Hobson, C. R.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Bowden, H. W.
Holman, P.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Bowles, F. G.
Holmes, Horace
Ross, William


Brockway, A. F.
Houghton, Douglas
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Brook, Dry den (Halifax)
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Short, E. W.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe).
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Burke, W. A.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Janner, B.
Slater, J. (Durham, Sedgefield)


Callaghan, L. J.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Sparks, J. A.


Champion, A. J.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Clunie, J.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Coldrick, W.
Kinley, J.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Collick, P. H.
Lawson, G. M.
Sylvester, G. O.


Collins, V. J.
Lewis, Arthur
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) 
Logan, D. G. 
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn 


Daines, P.
MacColl, J. E.
Wallace, H. W.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
McInnes, J.
Warbey, W. N.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Weitzman, D.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
McLeavy, F.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Deer, G.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Delargy, H. J. 
Manuel, A. C. 
Wigg, George 


Dodds, N. N. 
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. 
Willey, F. T.


Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)
Mayhew, C. P.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Mellish, R. J.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Messer, Sir F.
Willis, E. G.


Fernyhough, E.
Mikardo, Ian
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Fienburgh, W.
Mitchison, G. R.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Yates, V. F.


Follick, M.
Morrison, Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)



Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Moyle, A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Mulley, F. W.
Mr. Wilkins and Mr. John Taylor.


Gibson, C. W.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)



Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.


Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.


Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2.—(LIMIT OF COMMITMENTS BY PUBLIC WORKS LOAN COMMISSIONERS.)

5.41 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I beg to move, in page 2, line 3, to leave out "one thousand" and to insert "twelve hundred."
The Bill provides for advances to local authorities up to £500 million. The Public Works Loan Commissioners can also promise to local authorities an additonal £500 million, making £1,000 million in all. The effect of the Amendment is to increase the sum which the Commissioners can promise by a further £200 million, making £1,200 million.
I assure the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that we do not move the Amendment in any captious spirit. We are not here simply to obstruct. We welcome the Bill, and the sooner it reaches the Statute Book the better. We do not want to see the sum allocated so large that a Measure similar to the Bill will not be wanted for some time. It is an excellent thing, whatever Government be in office, that at least once a year Parliament should have an opportunity of reviewing the financial position between local authorities and the Exchequer.
In putting forward the Amendment the Opposition seek no party advantage, and have none to gain. We are genuinely apprehensive that the sum allocated will not be enough. The Bill was ordered to be printed on 16th February last. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the sum mentioned in it was decided upon by the Treasury before that date, and certainly before the Government, by their muddle and mismanagement, had to raise the Bank Rate to a height not reached during the past twenty years.
It is possible that the Government considered whether to withdraw the Bill. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will tell us about that. Anyway, the Government obviously decided to let it go and to hope for the best, particularly in the light of

their declared policy of letting local authorities battle for credit on the open market. It means that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer opens his Budget he will not have to make so large a pro vision as he otherwise might have had to do for below-the-line borrowing.
5.45 p.m.
The Financial Secretary told us a week ago that, during February, £49 million had been advanced. That works out at an average of £12 million a week. The chances are that the moneys advanced in the final week, when it was certain that the Bank Rate was about to go up, were a good deal larger than the monthly average. It is clear that, up to 25th February, £413 million of the £500 million at present authorised had gone. Before the Bill becomes law the whole £500 million may have been absorbed. We should be told whether that is so. Whether much or little of the £500 million be left by the time the Bill receives the Royal Assent, it is obvious that the amount promised must now have become larger than the £519 million which the Financial Secretary, when he spoke on the Second Reading, assured us had been promised by 19th February. I think that was the date he gave us.
Undoubtedly, the £500 million for actual advances has practically disappeared, and more than the £519 million must now have gone byway of promises to local authorities. If £500 million had been inserted in the 1953 Bill the Government would now be in rather a mess. That £500 million would have gone in promises, or else certain local authorities would have had to be refused during the last few weeks. We do not want that to happen again, and I am sure that the Financial Secretary does not want to see it happen.
By this Amendment we come to the aid of the Government to assist them to make the Bill a tidy Measure. In the last weeks we have frequently complained that there was no tea, no planes, no this, or no that. We do not want the Financial Secretary to tell us later that there is no money for the Public Works Loan Commissioners. The £500 million which is to be at the command of the Commissioners for promises to local authorities is already more than half hypothecated. Taking the two sums together, totalling


£1,000 million, more than half has been promised to local authorities.
The hon. Gentleman may tell us, when he replies to the debate, that a Bill of this kind can be introduced at any time, and that if the Government find them selves running short they can always ask the House to pass another Bill. That argument, however, is not altogether valid. I do not know when the General Election is coming, but if it comes in October or November it will come at the time when the present amounts allocated under the Bill may be beginning to run out. It is better for the Government to be safe than sorry. So I repeat that this Amendment is not moved in any spirit of obstruction. We are simply trying to point out to the Government that it is absurd to think that the £1,000 million mentioned in the Clause will necessarily be enough.
We think they must have forgotten their own policy, which has been adumbrated from that Box time and again during the last month or six weeks. Minister after Minister has told us that the Government are to go in for all sorts of schemes for bigger and better roads, bigger and better water and sewerage schemes, more schools, and a further drive for housing. We are also told that the local authorities will have to rehouse people under the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Bill, which is at present in Committee.
The Government, by an Amendment they themselves have brought forward, are pressing the local authorities to make grants for improvements under the 1949 Act. All this means that the local authorities will have to embark on larger schemes of capital expenditure than they have recently. The majority of them, as the Financial Secretary knows, will have to go to the Commissioners for funds for those schemes. Therefore, it is essential that the Board should have ample funds at its command.
When we were discussing this matter last Monday we on this side tried to persuade the Financial Secretary to give us some indication why the Board's rate for loans of over fifteen years has gone up only to 4 per cent, although the Bank Rate has gone up to 4½ per cent. In 1952, when the Bank Rate was 4 per cent., the Board's rate went up to 41/4 per cent. Then the Government, under

pressure, increased the housing subsidy. Now, as from the first of this month, they have decreased it. There is every reason, in our view, for the Government to consider this again, and to increase the subsidy to meet the vastly increased expenditure that will now fall on the local authorities.
The question I should like to put to the Financial Secretary is this: is the real reason for increasing the Board's rate now only to 4 per cent, and not 41/4 percent, that the Government feel they would then have to do what they did before, namely, to increase the housing subsidy when the Board's rate went up to 41/4 per cent.? Is that why the Board's rate is kept to 4 per cent, now? We do not object to a rate of only 4 per cent.. but some of us have fears that presently the Government may raise it. We like a low rate for the Board's loans because it does assist local authorities, but, if the rate is kept as it is—and we want it to be kept as it is, and as quickly as possible lowered—

The Chairman: Order. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is going beyond the Amendment.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I was coming at that moment to the point I wanted to make, Sir Charles. The rest was only preliminary to my point, which, I think, is a reasonable one to make in a debate on this Amendment.
I was about to ask, as the rate fixed is only 4 per cent, while the Bank Rate has gone up to 4½ per cent., if that is not an additional reason to suppose that the local authorities will seek more and more to obtain their loans from the Board? If many of them do that, as some of them have recently done, will that not indicate that the amount allocated is not sufficient?
It seems obvious to us, therefore, look at it how we will, that the £1,000 million mentioned in the Clause for advances and commitments is not enough and should be increased. This is, after all, only an enabling Bill. We are not voting this money. It will not necessarily be spent. There are safeguards. No local authority can get a loan unless it has the blessing of the Government Department concerned. In our view, we are not here inviting local authorities to spend more than they should. There are, as I say.


safeguards, and these can be implemented at any time. Therefore, as we see it, no harm can be done by increasing the specified amount from £1,000 million to £1,200 million. On the contrary, the in crease will give a certain amount of elbow room to the Government and also to the Board, which the Board ought to have. I have, therefore, utmost confidence that the Financial Secretary will accept the Amendment, and accept it gladly. We are out to help the Government on this occasion, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will see that it is so.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: The arguments of the right hon. Gentle man the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) might be considered more valid if all the local authorities were obliged to have recourse to the Public Works Loan Board for any borrowing that they seek to achieve. What the right hon. Gentleman has omitted to state in his most interesting exposition of the position is the fact that only slightly more than one-half of the global sum which has been borrowed by local authorities in the passage of the last two years has been borrowed from the Board. About £300 million a year has been borrowed in each of the last two years by the local authorities from the Board. Does the right hon. Gentleman disagree?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The hon. Gentleman says £300 million. Up to some date in February, the Financial Secretary told us last Monday, at least £343 million—

Mr. Charles Pannell: £364 million.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: —£364 million had gone, and I am sure that much more than that has been spent since.

Mr. Nabarro: I said, very distinctly and clearly, that £300 million a year is the level of borrowing by local authorities from the Board. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not wish to contradict what the Financial Secretary said on Second Reading:
… local authorities are raising sums of about £300 million a year from the Public Works Loan Board."—[Official Report, 28th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1803.]
That figure represents only slightly more than half of the total borrowing of the local authorities. In addition to that £300 million per annum, they are

borrowing £20 million a year on the money market, or they have borrowed approximately that sum in each of the last two years. They are also borrowing approximately £40 million a year from the Trustee Savings Banks, and they borrowed approximately that sum in each of the last two years.
Further, local authorities are borrowing approximately £200 million a year by private mortgage. Thus the total of the borrowing by local authorities from the Board, which in aggregate approximated to a sum of £300 million per annum in each of the last two years, compares with their aggregate borrowing from sources other than the Board of £260 million per annum in each of the last two years. Therefore, it follows that the total borrowing of local authorities from the Public Works Loan Board with which we are primarily concerned in this Bill is in total only slightly more than 50 per cent, of all the local authority borrowing.
6.0 p.m.
I have been a constant advocate of a policy of encouraging local authorities to go to the open money market for their money rather than to the Public Works Loan Board. My intervention in this debate today on the Amendment is simply for this reason, that as a balance of only slightly more than 50 per cent, of the money which local authorities require is borrowed from the Board, the remainder being borrowed from what I may call, in generic terms, private sources, it is manifestly impossible to estimate precisely when the additional powers granted to the Public Works Loan Board under a Bill of this kind will run out and when it will be necessary for the Treasury again to come to the House and seek further borrowing powers for the Board.
It may be a matter of fifteen months, eighteen months or two years, for every thing would depend upon the extent of the recourse of the local authorities to private money sources as opposed to the Public Works Loan Board. I believe, from the general financial situation today, that if the powers in this Bill, instead of being £1,200 million which the right hon. Member for Colne Valley wants, were to remain at £1,000 million, then they would not be exhausted sooner than a date fifteen months hence or longer than a date twenty-one months hence. In view of the general conditions of the money market, it


must be approximately fifteen to twenty - one months,or, say, eighteen months hence.
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not quarrel with me when I say that, in view of the magnitude of these financial transactions, it is desirable in the interests of good parliamentary government and good local government that we should have an opportunity, every eighteen months, to discuss the affairs of the Public Works Loan Board, and that the sum of money voted in total should conduce towards our being able to review the position not more than eighteen months hence. In fact, that would be the situation if the total in this Bill remained at £1,000 million. If it were put up to £1,200 mil lion it is possible that the period, according to the arrangements which are apparently being made, would be extended as far forward as two years, which I think would be a great mistake.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The hon. Gentleman missed my argument. I am not quarrel ling with that; it is possibly due to the way I put it. But, shortly, the point is this. On the showing of the Financial Secretary, on 19th February no less a sum than £519 million had been promised to local authorities. We were told that those were moneys which undoubtedly would be taken up because the Board had taken steps to clear its books of applications which were not likely to mature. There fore, we could take it that about three weeks ago £513 million had actually been asked for by the local authorities and not taken up. That is more than half of the £1,000 million which is in the Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: The right hon. Gentle man is quite right on his figure of £513million—

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: It should be £413 million.

Mr. Genvil Hall: No; £413 million, as I understood the Financial Secretary, has already been paid out. In addition to that, there are commitments, and the commitments he mentioned, I think, were £519, not £513, million.

Mr. Nabarro: Perhaps I may be for given if I intervene for one moment. There are, of course, contra items, if I may express myself in simple terms, and the most important of the contra items

is £170 million of commitments which have been cancelled. The Financial Secretary on 28th February said:
Since that date"—
that is, 31st March, 1954—
I understand that about £170 million of commitments have been cancelled on evidence that local authorities had no desire to take them up."—[Official Report, 28th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1799.]
The critical point in deciding how much ought to be provided for in total in this Bill is the average rate of lending by the Board—because it governs the frequency at which Parliament can review the activities of the Public Works Loan Board—and that average rate of lending is about £300 million. At the present rate of lending it will last for something between 15 months at a minimum and 21 months at a maximum. I believe that that is approximately the correct length of time, based upon the £1,000 million total borrowing powers that we are giving the Board under this Bill in the event of this Amendment not being carried.
Accordingly, I arrive at the conclusion that it would be a mistake to advance the amount of £1,000 million to £1,200 million, and, although the right hon. Gentleman moved his Amendment in the most courteous and lucid terms, I still think that we would be well advised to stick to the original terms of the Bill and not seek to enlarge the global amount which is therein provided.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is likely to mislead the Committee by some of his remarks this evening, for this reason. Although it may appear that if local authorities continue borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board at the rate at which they have been borrowing in the last two years, the consequences may be roughly as he suggests, there is some evidence that local authorities during the last three or four months have been borrowing increasingly from the Board, not only on account of expectation of movements of interest rates but also because the Board's regulations have been so altered as to make the borrowing arrangements a great deal more attractive to local authorities.
For example, it is now possible, and has been for the last three or four months in certain cases, for local authorities to


borrow for housing purposes on medium term from the Public Works Loan Board instead of being obliged to borrow for the whole period of the life of the assets—the houses—for sixty or eighty years as was at one time necessary. Many local authorities, including my own in New castle, have recently moved from the open market back to the Public Works Loan Board for that very reason, because they are now borrowing for 15-year periods for housing purposes.
That tendency which has just started—because the change was quite recent—seems to me to be likely to attract a good deal more borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board in the future. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) has suggested, it seems also that because of certain discrepancies between the Public Works Loan Board rate of interest and the market rate which is likely now to become stabilised, there will be greater attractions possibly on balance to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board.
Therefore, on both these counts 1 suggest that it may well be found that some figure—no one can estimate exactly, but certainly a good deal of that sum that has been borrowed in the open market in one way or another—may very well now come back to the Public Works Loan Board. I suggest that that is a very strong argument why this Amendment should be accepted.
It seems to me, too, that the only justification that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury can put forward for thinking that the borrowing may be rather lower than in the past would be if the Chancellor himself were to take further specific measures to try to damp down all local authority borrowing. This, of course, is what we suspect. It seems to me that the only justification which the Financial Secretary can put forward for rejecting the Amendment is for him to say, "We are determined to circumscribe severely local authority borrowing. We are determined to hold it back." That is, in fact, our main criticism of the Government's proposals.
The Financial Secretary must say one thing or the other. Either he must say that he believes that local authorities will be reasonably free to borrow and that he expects them to borrow at any rate up to the present total level of local authority

borrowing—in which case he must accept the Amendment; or, on the other hand, if he rejects the Amendment and keeps to the lower figure, it seems to me that he must confess that the Government intend to reduce the total level of local authority operations.
I suggest to my hon. Friends that this is a serious matter. As my right hon. Friend said, we have been treated, both in the House and in Committee, to a series of declarations of Government intentions on local government and other plans of development. If these plans are to come to fruition, then clearly they will demand the borrowing of very large sums; and one would expect a good deal of that borrowing to start within the period of the currency of the Bill.
But the action which the Financial Secretary is taking suggests that these great proposals are not to be brought into operation but are either to be postponed or not to be operated at all. It seems extraordinary at one and the same time to announce to the House great schemes of development in roads, in education, in housing and the rest, and to take action about interest rates which, if it means anything at all, must mean a desire on the part of the Government to hold back in vestment and development.
I therefore suggest that the Financial Secretary has a good deal of explaining to do if he does not accept the Amendment. I very much hope that he will find it possible to accept the Amendment. I do not see how it would inconvenience the Government. It does not enforce higher spending and, as my right hon. Friend said, it certainly gives more elbow-room to the Commissioners. I cannot see what objection the hon. Member can take to it and I very much hope that he will accept it.
It will be understood that, since we last discussed these questions, all on this side of the Committee have been very impressed by the announcement of the Governnment's intentions on housing subsidies. That, again, tended to suggest that the Government mean to hold back development. It is another factor which tends to make housing operations more expensive and therefore to discourage local authorities from carrying out their full programmes. That is what we suspect is in the back of the hon. Member's mind. If he wants to dispel these doubts, he


should take the simple line of accepting the Amendment so ably moved by my right hon. Friend.

6.15 p.m.

Lieut.-Coloned Lipton: I am happy to say that my name is associated with those of my right hon. Friends in putting this Amendment forward for consideration by the Committee.
It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who made an eloquent speech a few moments ago, is not in the Committee, because I want to refer to one or two matters which he mentioned. As he is not here, I shall not waste the Committee's time by dealing with the arguments of an hon. Member who put them forward and then apparently ran away before he could hear the proper answers to them.
For some reason or another, the hon. Member laboured under the pathetic illusion that local authorities were borrowing only £300 million a year from the Public Works Loan Board. That is flatly contradicted by what the Financial Secretary told the House on Second Reading. It is true that in a later stage of his speech the Financial Secretary said something about £300 million. By that time he may have forgotten what he said earlier, for he had made it clear that during the month of February—not the whole month, either—local authority borrowing reached the sum of £49 million. If local authority borrowing is to proceed at that rate it means that authorities will borrow about £600 million a year, which is twice the figure on which the hon. Member for Kidderminster based almost the whole of his argument.
It is interesting to note that in 1951, when, for the first time since the war, the present Administration introduced a Public Works Loans Bill, the Government held it necessary to increase the overall total from £850 million to £950 million. In this Bill we are asked to agree to a total of £1,000 million. If, in the opinion of the Government, £950 million were just sufficient in 1951, then, in my view, it would be wrong to base next year's working on a total of £1,000 million.
The Financial Secretary is aware that there has been a considerable fall in the value of money since 1951, when £950 million was considered adequate for the Board's overall commitments. According

to an answer given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House on 4th March, the £ was worth 17s. 8d. in January, 1955, compared with 20s. in 1951. If the Government suggest that £500 million is sufficient to cover local authority borrowing in the forthcoming twelve months, let us remember that £500 million, as at October, 1951, is worth only £441 million now.
What it means is that, compared with October, 1951, the Government are either hoping for or basing their calculations on a substantial cut in local authority expenditure. That is a point which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop). My hon. Friend was perhaps a little unjust in seeking to ascribe to the Financial Secretary the intention of cutting down local government expenditure, for he may have overlooked what the Financial Secretary said on Second Reading.
During the Second Reading it was said that we on this side of the House were suspicious about the Government's intentions, and, in fairness to the Financial Secretary, I think it is right that I should quote what he said, as reported in column 1804. He was dealing with the request to indicate how long the Measure would last and said:
It is impossible for me to do so. In my opening speech I said it would depend entirely on how rapidly and how heavily local authorities wished to borrow. I did not say how slowly or how lightly. I have conveyed no suggestion, nor have I any desire to convey the suggestion, that this Bill is a warning to local authorities not to pursue a borrowing policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1804.]
That, of course, does happen to coincide with what the hon. Member for Kidderminster said, but that does not matter.
Let us consider the implications of the argument of the Financial Secretary. It is that progressive local authorities, desiring to serve the communities in which they operate, because of rising prices will be compelled to incur greater expenditure in the provision of social services for which they are responsible. If it is the desire of the Financial Secretary, speaking officially on behalf of the Government, not in any way to discourage local authorities from borrowing money for suitable purposes, it will be quite clear that the money for which he is asking in this Bill will not be adequate.
I was reading in the newspaper today that building workers are to put in for an increase of 4d. an hour. That undoubtedly will add to building costs. It will mean that local authorities will have to borrow more money in future for carrying out housing operations than they have had to borrow for comparable work in the past.
Another factor which I should like the Financial Secretary to consider is that as the number of sites available for housing in the London County Council area grows more limited, the purchase of sites becomes a more costly proposition. In the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth in connection with a recent housing scheme we had to pay as much as £30,000 an acre. I see no prospect whatever of site values diminishing in London for some considerable time. That means that local authorities desirous of continuing to provide houses—quite apart from impending cuts in the subsidy and that sort of thing—will have to incur very much heavier capital liabilities in respect of sites acquisition. The Financial Secretary and the Government hold out the prospect of more schools and roads being provided in the imminent future. That will mean further borrowing on the part of local authorities.
The point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) was completely ignored by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, who attaches so much importance to the private money market. The situation seems quite simple. If the Bank Rate is 4| per cent, and money can be obtained from the Public Works Loan Board at 4 per cent., why should local authorities go to the open market? The answer is obvious to me and it reinforces the argument that the tendency of local authorities to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board will increase instead of diminishing.
The Financial Secretary held out the prospect that by getting rid of commitments which are moribund total commitments would be reduced, but he was not able to tell the House on Second Reading to what extent those moribund commitments would be wiped out and to what extent that would provide a greater margin within which the Public Works Loan Board would operate. Without that information it is quite impossible accurately to assess how much value can be

attached to the possibility of a substantial reduction in commitments by getting rid of moribund commitments. In any event, those moribund commitments are likely to be replaced by an even greater amount of local authority borrowing in the next year or two.
For these reasons 1 hope that the very reasonable case put forward by my right hon. Friend will be accepted by the Government. It cannot be their desire to go out of their way to dissuade local authorities—

Mr. Blenkinsop: My hon. and gallant Friend was kind enough to put me right on one point; perhaps I might put him right a little on this point. I think there was a reference to £170 million which had, in fact, been cancelled as moribund. That gives some guide as to the level of moribund commitments.

Lieut-Colonel Lipton: I am obliged to my hon. Friend.
The Financial Secretary will note that on this side we have no desire to mislead the Committee but are prepared to come to each other's aid in case, inadvertently, we overlook a material point. Although, as my hon. Friend pointed out, £170 million had been cancelled, that may easily be outweighed by additional borrowing which local authorities will be persuaded to make, for two reasons. One is that the rate of Public Works Loan Board is below that of the Bank Rate and the other is the apparent desire of the Government not to stand in the way of those local authorities which want to go in for borrowing for useful social services.
In my view, it cannot be the policy of the Government to dissuade local authorities from going to the Public Works Loan Board. The slight advantage in interest rates at the moment continues to make it advantageous for local authorities to borrow on long term. The history of the Public Works Loan Board in the matter of local borrowing is interesting in this connection. Out of a total net loan debt of the London County Council and the Metropolitan boroughs amounting on 31st March, 1954, to £326 million, no less than £188 million was borrowed from the Board. The Financial Secretary will note that £85 million out of the £123 million of the net loan debt of the Metropolitan boroughs was borrowed from the Board.


I see no reason at all why that tendency should suddenly alter because of anything the Financial Secretary said on Second Reading.

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell the Committee how much of that total borrowed from the Board was borrowed during the time in which the authorities were compelled to go to the Board?

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: The period during which local authorities were compelled to go to the Public Works Loan Board represents a short period in their total financial history, taking into account the years on which local authorities borrow on long term. I have given the global figures to indicate that local authorities generally, quite irrespective of party affiliation, attach very great importance to the facilities provided by the Board. I am sure they will continue to attach even greater importance to those facilities in the near future.
For these reasons I think my right hon. Friend has made out a convincing case, which, I hope, the Financial Secretary will be disposed to accept.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. James MacColl: I share the regret of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut-Colonel Lipton) that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has left us. The hon. Member so often makes good speeches in the House that it is a great pity he should be under the delusion that he made a good speech this evening. He has a facility for dealing with figures which I cannot possibly hope to rival.
I do not pretend to be able to grasp all the figures which have been bandied about during these discussions, and I have not quite discovered which of my hon. Friends—my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton or my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop)—is the more "moribund"; I have given up trying to cope with all those details. But it seems to me that the Amendment raises an important question, not of detailed figures, but of simple logic.
The Government have been unable to make up their minds what they are trying to do in this Bill. One thing which they

can do is to assume that their policy of keeping the interest rate of the Public Works Loan Board below that of the market will be successful, in which case obviously, as my hon. and gallant Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) have said—although the hon. Member for Kidderminster could not grasp the point when my right hon. Friend made it—the effect will be that the more money, which up to now has been borrowed from the open market, will be borrowed from the Public Works Loan Board. Otherwise, if that were not so, there would be no point in having a different interest rate between the two.
Last year and the year before, the former Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who is now the Minister of Transport, was quite clear about his policy. His policy was to deter local authorities from going to the Public Works Loan Board and to encourage them to go to the open market in order to reduce the Government's commitments "below the line." That was a policy with which I disagreed and which I and a number of my colleagues on this side opposed, but it was a consistent and logical policy. It was a policy which one could recognise being carried out with the clarity of mind and ruthlessness of action that one would associate with the Minister of Transport.
That policy was effective. A great many local authorities did. in fact, move over to the private money market. Now. we have reached the situation that the interest rates in the open market have been raised as a result of Government policy. If the Government had then said, "We will not touch the interest rate of the Public Works Loan Board, because we recognise that now, in order to carry out our policy of expansion of the social services, it is necessary that there should be a subsidised rate of interest," I could have understood that. It would have been quite logical to leave the Public Works Loan Board rate of interest where it was, and to increase enormously the amount which is provided for in the Bill, and to carry out a consistent policy.
On the other hand, the Government might have said, "No. The statement of policy previously laid down by the Government is still our policy. We intend to link the interest rate firmly to the


market rate. We want to keep local authorities in the open market." In that case, there would have been a logical and consistent case for raising the interest rate to the level of the market rate and for keeping the amount provided for in the Bill at its present figure. But how the Government can hope to do both, and which of the two things will be the most effective, is something which I find extremely puzzling.
I presume that somebody somewhere in the Government is responsible for coordinating policy. We at one time had a great many Ministers in another place who indulged in co-rdination. Presumably, one of those great co-ordinators is capable of addressing himself to the question of which of these two warring policies is to succeed.
Is local authority borrowing to go to the Public Works Loan Board, or will the raising of the rate of interest discourage all local authority borrowing in absolute terms? Which of the two will be effective? Upon the answer to that question seems to depend the answer to whether we are right in our Amendment or whether the Government are right in their original proposal.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley was charitable towards the Government in saying that we assume that they mean what they say in stating that there is to be a great development of investment by local authorities. If that is true, if that is what the Government are providing for, our Amendment must be right. If, on the other hand, the other policy is to work, and there is to be an absolute deterrent as a result of the raising of the interest rate, the Government have a case.
Let me, however, take just one illustration of how the situation would work, as far as I have been able to understand it; and this point was made fairly by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton. Local authorities who have been borrowing in the open market have been taking full advantage of the interest rates on short-term money. That is a policy which can be carried on for a certain length of time, but sooner or later there comes a moment when a borrower must decide to fund his loan and his capital commitments on a Long-term basis. He cannot continue for ever gambling on short-term money rates remaining below

Long-term money rates. Therefore, at some stage a local authority must look round and see where it is to borrow.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster mentioned that many local authorities were borrowing from trustee savings banks. That was true, but one of the disadvantages of borrowing from trustee savings banks is that they usually demand a break clause. Therefore, one cannot borrow on long-term from trustee savings banks without running the risk that the break clause will come into operation, and the borrower then finds himself in the situation that he may have to borrow at a higher rate of interest: at some future moment, he may find himself in a difficult situation financially.
The prudent course which, I should have thought, most local authorities would be taking was, having sampled the open money market and having taken full advantage of the difference between the short-term and the long-term rates of interest while the going was good, wisely deciding now that they would invest and take full advantage of the new preferential rate which they get from the Public Works Loan Board.
If local authorities are to do that, if that is the intention of the Government—otherwise there would be no point in having kept the rate of interest for the Public Works Loan Board below that of the open market—surely there must be an increased demand for the resources available through the Public Works Loan Board.
For anybody to risk his reputation, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster did, by trotting out a lot of figures which he had learnt by heart with extraordinary skill, and producing a lot of historical data without in any way addressing him self to the problem of what the Government are trying to do, and without attempting to examine critically whether the Government will be successful in either of their two competing policies, seemed to me to be wasting the time of the Committee.
Surely, therefore, the Financial Secretary must make up his mind and tell the Committee what is going to happen. Will he succeed in keeping down local authority borrowing because the rate of interest is going up or will he find himself faced with a great number of local


authorities changing their borrowing from the open market to the Public Works Loan Board as a result of the preference which is now provided for people who go to the Board?
I welcome that preference, because I want to encourage people to go to the Public Works Loan Board rather than to the open market. Therefore, I am glad that that difference has been made. I am, however, rather dismayed to find that, if the Government resist our Amendment, they must feel that that policy will not work and that they do not intend that that advantage, which one sees as a sort of repentance on the part of the Government, should work. One would be glad to know how the Government intend to keep local authority borrowing within the compass of the Bill without accepting the Amendment.

Mr. C. W. Gibson (Clapham): I sup port the Amendment, not because I am suspicious of the Government's intentions, as outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), but because, in my simplicity, I accepted the vast programme of public works which was announced in the last month or so as being really intended to be carried out. Having decided that these vast schemes of road improvement, school building, housing and the provision of water supplies and sewerage constituted the kind of policy which might look very well in the shop window if there were a General Election, I should have thought that the Government might provide sufficient funds to carry the schemes on for the next year or two.
It is difficult to go into a great number of detailed figures, but one of the vast road schemes which it has been indicated will be sanctioned is the Elephant and Castle scheme. I have been trying to check what it would cost and what the L.C.C. would have to borrow to carry out the first stage of that scheme. While I have no final figures, I understand that the 16 acres required for carrying out the first stage of that vast scheme will cost about£125,000 an acre, which will include buying up some property. That kind of thing must apply to the whole country though not, of course, to the extent that it applies in London, where landlords rake off enormous profits when public improvements are to be carried out.
The Government either mean these programmes to be carried out or they do not. If the Government do not provide finance through the Public Works Loan Board which the local authorities can take up, the schemes will be damped down. It is not sufficient to say that these schemes are intended for some years ahead. Some of them are to come for ward next year. No local authority will plunge into vast schemes of this kind without certainty that the capital expenditure will be authorised and the grants to which the local authority is entitled will be paid. That means that unless we have enough money in the funds of the public Works Loan Board, inevitably and well within fifteen months more money will be required from Parliament.
The Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Bill, which is now before a Standing Committee, will mean the expenditure of an enormous sum of money in London, where 40,000 or 50,000 houses will have to be leased or bought and where we shall be lucky if we can acquire each house for less than about £1,500, on the average. That will mean a sum of about £6 million. Although the problem with which that Bill is intended to deal is not as serious in some other towns as it is in London, the Bill does mean that the total number of loans which local authorities will have to take up will pile up.
The fact that during the last few weeks there has been a big extra demand on the Public Works Loan Board, added to the declared intention of the Government to go on with vast schemes of road improvements and the like, must mean that there will be a very big demand within the next two years, not ten years, on the Public Works Loan Board, otherwise schemes will be pushed on one side for three or four years or will not be carried out.
We on this side of the Committee have tried in the House and in Standing Committee to have the period within which houses must be derequisitioned extended to ten years but we are told by the Government that this work must be done within five years, despite the increase in capital charges, because there was some doubt whether local authorities could be relied upon to carry out the provisions of that Bill if the time were extended beyond five years.
6.45 p.m.
I am sure that the whole country agrees with the need for the vast schemes which the Government have announced. We all want to see new schools built and big road improvements schemes carried out, but none of us wants to wait for ten or twenty years before seeing them. Most of the plans are ready and we ought to be busy preparing the financial estimates so that the local authorities can make their requests for the necessary capital loans. Whether they do that through the Public Works Loan Board or in the private market is a matter for them, but it is interesting to know that the Financial Secretary has said that 75 per cent, of the loans for housing which local authorities have taken up were taken up through the Board.
Do the Government intend to go on building a vast number of houses by using the services of the local authorities, or is it part of Government policy to re duce the amount of local authority building, as the tendency now appears to be? The country is entitled to know. In any case, whoever builds the houses, the building will involve vast capital expenditure. If the Government accept the Amendment, people will be more inclined to believe that the Government really intend to carry out the big schemes which they have announced and that the schemes are not political camouflage in the windows of the Tory Party.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury well knows, I am interested in the Bill on behalf of a number of rural authorities in Cheshire who were very concerned about the threat, now carried out, of a rise in interest rates and a refusal to increase subsidy. We were unable to clinch the argument during the Second Reading debate last week, because, although we pressed the Financial Secretary very hard to tell us whether local authorities would have some assistance by increased subsidy to meet the higher charges, the hon. Gentleman was reluctant or unable to give us an answer.
The other day, at Question Time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked the same question. He, with his great authority, could have given the answer which the Financial Secretary, unfortunately, could not give or refused to give, but the Chancellor failed to satisfy us on

this side of the Committee that he had any intention whatsoever of increasing the subsidy to local authorities following the imposition of the new burden, which will mean an increase of 2s. a week in the rent of every house built by local authorities. This will bear particularly hard on people in the rural areas, especially in view of the present wage rates of farm workers.
The Bill which we are now asked to pass through Committee was published on 16th February. The total sum provided for at that date as the total commitment of the Public Works Loan Commissioners was £1,000 million. If that sum was the right figure on 16th February, it surely could not be the right figure after the announcement by the Chancellor that the Bank Rate was being raised. If the figure were sufficient on 16th February it was not sufficient after that date.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) talked about going on to the open market and borrowing. That was a sound argument a fortnight ago before the Bank Rate was increased, because the rates in the open market were such that local authorities would pay quite reasonably, but the rate now in the open market is obviously going to be higher, perhaps by 1 per cent. I do not know what the figure is, but perhaps the Financial Secretary will tell us the difference between the rates at which he announced the Board was willing to lend in the future and the general rate on the open money market.
If it is 1 per cent, on a £2,000 house that is £20 per year, which is 7s. a week, whereas if it is a half per cent, difference then it becomes 3s. 6d. a week. These are serious matters and obviously no local authority is going to the open market as it might have done a fortnight ago, but will go to the Board because of the Chancellor's announcement of the change in the Bank Rate. If the sum were sufficient in the view of the Government on 16th February, it is no longer sufficient today.
I ask the Financial Secretary to tell us: was this amount considered by those who consider such things before or after it was known that the Bank Rate was to be increased? If it was before, then our Amendment should be accepted right away because, obviously, the figure is not sufficient. The big local authorities, with their vast power, will still be able to


wring from the financial people who hold the money bags in the City loans at low rates of interest, but those whom I represent, the small rural authorities, have not the power to do that. They want small loans and now they will be compelled to go to the Board. It may be that it is just the rural authorities and the small authorities generally who will find this significant.

Mr. Gibson: Hear, hear.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: My hon. Friend says "Hear, hear," but the larger authority he represents will be able to get the money whereas the small rural authorities in Cheshire will not be able to find it. We may be in the midst of a General Election in October and the cupboard will be bare. I ask the Financial Secretary to accept this Amendment. The Government cannot be embarrassed if they are not compelled to lend this money. It will only be lent if necessary, and it will have to be approved by the Board. It is only a ceiling. It is not a demand for that amount, and, therefore, I ask the Financial Secretary to accede to the request of my right hon. Friend and accept this Amendment.

Mr. James McInnes: I want to make an appeal to the Financial Secretary, because some hon. Members have been astounded at some of the figures the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) threw about during his intervention in the debate. Unfortunately he is not here, and this is the third time he has disappeared from the Committee. Possibly he is away looking for some more inaccurate figures.
The hon. Member asserted that the total taken up by local authorities over the 12 months was approximately £300 million, but the Financial Secretary himself indicated during our previous debates that in February the borrowing reached a figure of approximately £49 million. So we can logically assume that on that basis the average per annum is about £600 million per annum.
I am concerned about the sincerity of the Government's announcement regarding their programme for the roads, bridges, tunnels and works of that kind. I want to cite two examples from Glasgow. The Minister of Transport has indicated that he is agreeable to the Whiteinch—Linthouse Tunnel scheme

proceeding. That project will cost approximately £3½ million. It will inevitably involve the local authority going to the Public Works Loan Board for part of the money, because, of course, the Minister of Transport will give a 50 per cent, grant.
Another development in Glasgow is the extension and modernisation of the Glasgow—Stirling Road, which again has been approved by the Government. That will also involve the local authority making application to the Public Works Loan Board for the necessary money to commence operations. So from one city we have two illustrations involving, probably, a loan of £5 million.
Then there is the position of Glasgow under the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act. Glasgow has 90,000 slum houses, but, on the other hand, it has more municipal houses than any other city in Great Britain. The total is 100,000, almost one-third of the population living in municipal houses. Under the Housing (Repairs and Rents) Act, we are asked to make an intensive attack on the slums that will involve the acquisition of sites and the payment of ground values. This is a third illustration of the additional expenditure in which Glasgow will be involved.
I want to ask the Financial Secretary if the Government are sincere in then-desire to expand the social services and to see the ambitious schemes which they have announced over the past few weeks come to fruition. If that is so, the amounts included in the Bill are inadequate to meet the demands of local authorities in this country, and if the Financial Secretary does not agree with the suggested increase of £200 million I can only ask him whether that figure would not be more in keeping with the needs of the situation.

Mr. K. Thompson: The last three speeches to which we have listened fulfil all the requirements of those who want to hear the case for the Amendment answered. We have the mighty London County Council complaining about the operation of this Bill.

Mr. Gibson: I want the hon. Gentle man to understand that I was not speaking for the London County Council. I was speaking for the ordinary man in the street.

Mr. Thompson: We have heard the voice of the ordinary man in the street with the London accent about the operation of this Bill, and presumably—

Mr. Arthur Moyle: What is wrong with the London accent?

Mr. Thompson: Nothing. I have not complained about the London accent, but 1 do not want the London accent to detach itself from London on this matter.
We have heard of the effects of this Bill on other mighty local authorities. Then we had the hon. and learned Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) complaining about the operation of this Bill on the small local authorities, and in order to support his argument he turned round and blamed the big authorities, stating that it was all right for them because they were in a much more advantageous position and had nothing about which to complain. He said that they could raise the money by going to the private money market and getting long loans and advantageous rates of interest which put them in a better position than they would be by going to the Public Works Loan Board. That may probably be true. Certainly, so far as my own experience goes, it is true of the bigger local authorities.
I am appalled, every time local authority matters are raised in the House of Commons, at the way in which hon. Members of the party opposite continually set themselves out to denigrate the local authorities. [Hon. Members: "No."] They have no regard whatever for the skill and resources of our local authorities—

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I was talking about the poor little rural authorities in Cheshire.

Mr. Thompson: This happens every time we discuss the affairs of local authorities.
The big local authorities are quite capable of managing their own financial affairs, quite capable of using skill and judgment as to whether to go to the Public Works Loan Board under the terms of this £500 million increase or to go to the money market—to choose the moment for the development operations and to obtain the greatest advantage to be gained as

between the Board and the open market. They are capable of that. [An Hon. Member: "We said so."] I am glad to have confirmation of the regard of hon. Gentlemen opposite regarding the virility and vigour of the big local authorities. It is a novelty.
While the big local authorities, including Glasgow, look after their own financial operations with judgment and skill, there is plenty of opportunity, by the Public Works Loan Board provision, for the small local authorities in Cheshire and elsewhere to look after their needs. That is precisely what the Board is for.
In the meantime, let me remind hon. Gentlemen who have complained about the fact that there is a difference at the moment between the rate of interest of the Public Works Loan Board provisions and what might be obtained in the money market by the smaller authorities, that the Bank Rate is a movable figure. It can change in order to reflect the changing conditions of the times. The fact that it happens to be 4 per cent, at the moment is no indication, and ought not to be taken to be any indication, that it will remain there either for ever or for very long. It might go up again, and it might go down again. So we ought not to regard that as the basic argument on which to rest arguments in support of the Amendment.
I do not like to hear hon. Gentlemen arguing, as the hon. and learned Member for Crewe argued, that this is the end of all local authority housing, and that we shall not get the social service advantages, as they have been called, which the Government have announced already, just because there has been an increase in the interest rate of the Public Works Loan Board and a limit of £1,000million placed on the total. Nothing of the sort; local authorities are not ham strung as to the rents they may charge for their houses. That is a free decision for a local authority to take in the light of its own knowledge of its own local circum stances. Local authorities are perfectly free—

Mr. MacColl: Would the hon. Gentle man address himself to the relevant fact—if what he says is correct—that if local authorities are not to be hamstrung in their housing policy, they will have to borrow money? If Liverpool and Glasgow and London leave the open market


and go to the Board, there will be nothing left for the rest of us, because they will swallow it all up, the cupboard will be bare and Crewe and Widnes and all the other places will have to whistle.

Mr. Thompson: I thought we had dealt with that.

Mr. MacColl: Will the hon. Gentle man deal with it?

Mr. Thompson: The big local authorities can look after themselves by getting more advantageous terms in the open market than they can get with even these advantages from the Public Works Loan Board.

Mr. MacColl: Not today.

Mr. Thompson: Of course they can. That is the experience of most local authorities.

Mr. McInnes: Would the hon. Gentle man explain to me the advantages which a local authority can obtain by a loan in the open market for housing purposes against the rates and conditions now offered by the Board?

Mr. Thompson: It is all knit up with the pattern of. its own financial structure. It is entirely a matter of how the local authority manages its own total financial operations of all kinds.
Finally, let me say this about the smaller local authorities being squeezed out. There is no final date fixed to a Bill of this kind, as hon. Members know. This is not £500 million for a specific period. This is not a total that can never be varied. This is a lump sum addition to the total funds available to the Board, and when that total is exhausted, my hon. Friend can come to the House again and ask for more. I see no reason, there fore, why this Clause should be altered in the way suggested by the Amendment.

Mr. Moyle: I did not intend to participate in this debate until I heard the first observation made by the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. K. Thompson), who apparently assumes that on this side of the Commitee we have not a good word to say for local government. Let me correct him by saying that we want local government to flourish, because then there will be no chance of dictatorship arising in this country. So I hope that the hon.

Gentleman will qualify his rather sweeping allegation in that regard.
I have one or two misgivings about this Bill, and I want the Financial Secretary to reassure me. We have had another increase in the Bank Rate, which means that the taxpayer will have to pay more for credit accommodation, and so will the ratepayer. It is suggested by the Press which supports the party opposite that there should be a cut in the housing subsidy. Those facts being utterly unassailable, I cannot understand why the Government should reduce the loan issue from £1,200 million to £1,000 million. That is a simple issue which I would like explained. Is this an attempt to push over to the private lending houses the business normally done with the Public Works Loan Board?
I do not think that the Financial Secretary will be surprised if I tell him that I would much prefer the Public Works Loan Commissioners to cover all loans sought by local authorities rather than for local authorities to go into the City for what they want. I think it is wrong to boost the financial interests, which exact tribute but make no contribution to our economy.
Those are the questions which 1 want the Financial Secretary to answer, and if he is not prepared to accept the Amendment, will he undertake to reassure us that, if the issue provided for falls short of the need, he will come to the House and ask for further authority to increase the £1,000 million to £1,200 million?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): Perhaps I could answer this debate most swiftly by un reservedly accepting the suggestion put to me by the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle) and assuring the Committee that if we found ourselves restricted by the £1,000 million, and the £500 million authorised by Clause 1 had been advanced, we should come to the House again. However, this has been quite a prolonged debate and the Committee probably expects of me a rather fuller and more detailed answer than that. I should like to give it, because I hope to be able to convince the Committee that there is no abstruse policy question involved and nothing sinister lurking round the corner. It is simply a matter of arithmetic and I believe that we have got the arithmetic correct.
The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) paid a deserved tribute to my predecessor for his clarity of mind and ruthlessness of action. I do not suppose that I can compete with him in clarity of mind and I doubt whether a Public Works Loans Bill is the most enticing ground on which to show ruthlessness of action, but I will endeavour to prove that what we are doing is to take a practical line.
There are two limitations put into these Public Works Loan Bills—first, the limitation as to the amount of the advances and, secondly, the limitation as to the amount of the advances plus commitments not yet taken up. First, I will deal with the advances, because evidently there was some uncertainty among hon. Members as to the rate at which the Board has been making advances. The present Act received the Royal Assent on 18th December, 1953, and authorised £500 million of advances from that date. From that date up to 1st January, 1955—that is just over the 12 months—the Board advanced £316 million. The figure had risen by 1st February to £364 million, and by 25th February to £413 million.
Those were the figures that I gave on Second Reading. I should like to bring the Committee right up to date with the latest information about this. The figure today, 7th March, is £431 million. The permitted maximum is £500 million, so we have left authorisation for only £69 million. For that reason I was particularly glad to hear the right hon. Gentle man the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) say that he did not wish to delay the passage of the Bill to the Statute Book.
In the old days these Public Works Loans Acts authorised a figure of advances only, and made no mention of commitments. I think that it was during the time when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley occupied the position which I now have the honour to hold that an opinion was given by the Law Officers of the Crown that it would be ultra vires for the Public Works Loan Board to enter into commitments beyond the figure which it was authorised to advance by Act of Parliament. There fore, from that time onwards, it became necessary not only to authorise a ceiling of advances but to authorise as well a much higher ceiling of advances plus commitments. The first such powers were

taken in the Public Works Loans (No. 2) Act, 1946.
In the 1953 Act the ceiling of advances is £500 million and the ceiling of advances plus commitments is £1,200 million. The purpose of the Amendment is not to change the figure of £500 million—that is contained in Clause 1 which the Committee accepted—but to urge that the figure for advances plus commitments should remain at £1,200 million. My business is to explain to the Committee as clearly as I can the reason why we think that £1,000 million is a more realistic figure than £1,200 million.
7.15 p.m.
I say at once that if one were to fix the figures for advances plus commitments too low certainly any Government would be embarrassing themselves because they would have to come back to the House of Commons, as the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen indicated earlier, before the £500 million of advances was used up. It has always been accepted, ever since 1946, that it should be what I might call the Clause 1 figure, the figure for total advances, which is the real restraint. The figure put into Clause 2, the figure for advances plus commitments, is a figure which is thought to be suitable and not likely to be reached until the £500 million in Clause 1 has been exhausted. Therefore, it becomes particularly apposite to examine what the position is at present.
At present, £431 million have been advanced since 18th December, 1953, and the total outstanding commitments are £501 million, making a total of advances plus commitments of £932 million. That means that we have £69 million in hand under Clause 1, but we have £268 million in hand under Clause 2 because the pre sent limit under Clause 2 is £1,200 million.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The figures are interesting, but they mean that there have been no applications and no moneys advanced other than the amount the hon. Gentleman mentioned—that is, the difference between £413 million and £431 million—since we had our debate last week, because last week the advances and commitments came to £932 million. At that time the commitments went up to 19th February only. The figure the hon.


Gentleman now gives is the same—£932 million. That means that nothing has happened during the last week.

Mr. Brooke: The figure I gave of commitments was not for 1st March, but for a date in the middle of February. I think it was 19th February.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes.

Mr. Brooke: Those are not strictly comparable. Perhaps I can best help the Committee, the right hon. Gentleman having raised the point, by giving the comparison between 1st February and 7th March. At 1st February the advances were £364 million and the total of advances plus commitments was £909 mil lion. Since 1st February, the total of advances plus commitments has gone up from £909 million to £932 million; that is to say, an additional £23 million of commitments have been entered into by the Board. But the amount advanced has in that period gone up from £364 million to £431 million—an increase of £67 million.
Local authorities have been rapidly taking up loans to which the Board was already committed, their financial advisers no doubt pointing out that they might not be able to get as favourable a rate of interest unless they acted quickly. Those are the figures to which I have addressed myself—the figures of £431 million of advances and £932 million of advances plus commitments.
I have to ask myself what figure it is justifiable to put in Clause 2, accepting the fact that £500 million is the figure in Clause 1. My judgment is that, the Committee having accepted £500 million as the ceiling for Clause 1, it will fully suffice to put the ceiling for Clause 2 at £1,000 million. Frankly, we should be all right under the present Act if we had a ceiling of £1,000 million in Section 2 instead of £1,200 million, because it seems fairly clear that, as things are going at present, the advances under Section 1 would reach £500 million quicker than the total of advances plus commitments under Section 2 would reach £1,000 million. But I am not resting solely on that. I have also to look to the future.
I would remind the Committee of the changes in procedure which have been

agreed to by the local authorities within recent months. The first was that the local authorities agreed that, as from the end of last year, commitments which were more than two years old and which had not been taken up by the local authorities should be cancelled. As I told the House on Second Reading, commitments amounting to approximately £170 million were thus cancelled. Secondly, a new procedure has been agreed to for obtaining the approval of loans from the Board.
Up to the present, the practice has been that the Board was asked to approve, and did approve, a loan in principle at the same time that the sanctioning Ministry issued its loan sanction to the local authority. Indeed, when it obtained its loan sanction, the local authority received, as it were almost automatically, approval in principle for the granting of the loan from the Board. That practice resulted in the Board being committed to make a great many loans which, in fact, it was found that the local authorities did not take up either because they decided not to proceed at all, or not to proceed for the time being, or because they found that they could get the money elsewhere, or, it may have been, because in some cases they decided not to raise the loan and preferred to pay for the project out of revenue.
That was how it was found that there was this very substantial slice of £170 million that had been lying on the books of the Board for more than two years and had not been acted upon. The local authorities have themselves agreed that, in future, the loan application procedure shall be revised, and that the local authority will only come to the Board to seek approval of a loan if it is virtually certain that the authority is going to take up the loan from the Board.
When that system is operating fully, it should mean that the local authorities will not need to obtain approval from the Board until quite a short time before they are actually going to take up the money, and this backlog of old commitments which seem never likely to be taken up will disappear. Indeed, my judgment is that by the end of this year, bearing in mind that under the previous decision about commitments entered into—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and, 40 Members being present—

Mr. Brooke: I was just explaining that in my judgment we shall find that by the end of this year there will be some thing over £100 million of old commitments which will by then be over two years old and which have not been taken up. The Committee will bear in mind that the last operation of clearing away commitments which were two years dead removed all those entered into in the year 1952 or earlier.
I do not know whether the local authorities will agree to a similar sweeping away at the end of this year, and I certainly do not wish to compel them in any direction. But I can assure the Committee that under this new procedure, which is completely agreed between the Board and the local authorities, the average period which elapses between the time when the Board gives approval in principle for a loan and the time when that loan is actually taken up by the local authority concerned is going to diminish very substantially. That means that, in future, we shall not need anything like this gap of £700 million which we have had for the past year or two between the £500 million and the £1,200 million.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Though that change, as the Financial Secretary explained last week, will operate in one direction, does not the hon. Gentle men realise that there has been another change, that is, that the havoc caused in the capital market by the rise in the Bank Rate will operate in the opposite direction by inducing local authorities to go to the Board rather than to the City? Has the hon. Gentleman taken that into account?

Mr. Brooke: The right hon. Gentle man's intervention prompts me to say that I should have thought that the logical course for the Opposition, if it were troubled about that point, would have been to seek to amend Clause 1 rather than Clause 2, because it is Clause 1 which is going to be the limiting Clause. If it is felt that there will be a rush on the Board, it really does not matter what figure one puts in Clause 2, because it is the £500 million in Clause 1 which is going to be used up.
The case which I am putting to the Committee—and I think it is the only case that I have to answer under this Amendment—is that if £500 million is accepted as the proper figure under Clause 1—and it has been accepted by the

Committee today without debate—then it would be otiose to put as large a figure as £1,200 million in Clause 2.

Mr. Jay: But the Financial Secretary will surely agree that in the previous Act the figures were £500 million and £1,200 million respectively.

Mr. Brooke: Yes, and I am pointing out that there have been these changes in practice and procedure which are undoubtedly going substantially to bring down the quantity of outstanding commitments not yet taken up. Indeed, I have pointed out that at present those out standing commitments amount to £501 million, that they are falling and that they will continue to fall. As I say, in my judgment there will be found by the end of this year to be about £100 million of dead commitments never likely to be taken up and which can be written off. All I am anxious to do is to put practical figures into an Act of Parliament. I submit that if £500 million is the correct figure for Clause 1, £1,200 million would be too large a figure for Clause 2, since this new agreement upon procedure has been reached with local authorities.
7.30 p.m.
I understand from what hon. Members opposite have said that they are still suspicious that some brake is being put upon local authorities. I explained during the Second Reading debate that this is a machinery Bill and not a policy Bill. I said that I thought that the £500 million was likely to last for about sixteen months, as it did last time, although nobody can forecast for certain. I should also like to remind the Committee that I said, in terms:
 I have conveyed no suggestion, nor have I any desire to convey the suggestion, that this Bill is a warning to local authorities not to pursue a borrowing policy."—[Official Report, 28th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1804.]
It is a piece of machinery enabling local authorities to get money from the Public Works Loan Board, and if it is felt that £500 million is the right figure to put in Clause 1 as the maximum for advances, I hope that the explanations which I have given will have convinced the Committee that it would be a mistake to continue the figure in Clause 2 as high as £1,200 million.
The figure of £1,000 million will be sufficient. We are likely to come to the


end of the £500 million before we come to the end of the £1,000 million. I repeat my assurance to the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen that should things turn out differently the Government will not hesitate to ask for further powers.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Hon. Members on this side of the Committee are disappointed at the fact that the Financial Secretary has not accepted this very modest Amendment, which does no more than put into the Bill what was put into the last one. We are not surprised that he has not accepted it, however, because the Government never accept anything, however good it may be, that comes from this side of the Committee. We do not want to delay the Bill; we think that it is an excellent one.
As the Financial Secretary has informed us that the Board has less than £70 mil lion left from which it can make advances to local authorities it is obvious that the Bill should reach the Statute Book quite soon. I therefore advise my right hon. and hon. Friends not to divide, but to look forward to the time—which can not be very far ahead—when we shall be sitting on that side and produce Bills which will contain more realistic figures than the hon. Member had seen fit to put into this Bill.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I want to ask the Financial Secretary two very brief questions. I do not expect an answer now, because they concern rather a complicated matter, involving a good deal of back history. St. Ives has borrowed from the Public Works Loan Board in the past, and there is some difference of opinion how various sums must be repaid. The Treasury seems to take the view that they must be repaid out of the general rate fund, but the authority feels that this cannot be done. I should like my hon. Friend to look into this matter and see if some help can be given to the authority.
If it is not possible for it to borrow any more under the present Bill to cope with the abnormal storm damage that we have had in recent months, I hope that he will not allow it to affect Treasury approval under other legislation which we have just

passed. I hope that the authority will be able to go to the Minister of Agriculture for loans or anything it wants to make good its harbour damage, which is a matter of national importance.

Mr. Brooke: I am glad that my hon. Friend did not press me to give an immediate answer to his question, because, even if I were able to do so, I doubt whether I could do it upon the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" and remain in order. I have taken note of what he said.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

DOUBLE TAXATION AGREEMENT, SOUTH AFRICA

7.36 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (South Africa) Order, 1955, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 25th January.
There is another Double Taxation Order upon the Order Paper which also covers amendments to a previous Agreement reached with South Africa. Although the first deals with taxes upon income and the other with Estate Duty, it may be the wish of the House that I should speak upon both together, and I understand that hon. Members have no objection.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): If that meets the convenience of the House, let it be so.

Mr. Brooke: The first of these Orders is a proposal that we should validate a protocol amending the Double Taxation Agreement with the Union of South Africa which was signed in October, 1946. There are certain small points which I shall endeavour to explain to the House and which seem to make it desirable to approve this new protocol. The protocol in question was signed on 5th November, 1954, and this draft Order was laid upon 25th January of this year.
The protocol amends the existing Double Taxation Agreement in two respects. First, it extends the scope of the exemption given by Article V of the original Agreement in respect of shipping and air transport profits. At present, each country exempts from tax profits derived by residents of the other country from operating ships or aircraft registered in that other country. The restriction of the application of the exemption to ships or aircraft registered in the other country was included in the original Agreement at the request of the Union Government.
We prefer the type of provision which is more common in our other Agreements, under which shipping and air profits accruing to a resident of one country are exempt from tax in the other country, regardless of where the ships or aircraft are registered. We have been able to reach agreement with the Union Government upon making this change, and the new Article omits the restriction. I should add that when the existing Agreement was being negotiated it was under stood on our side that the exemption of air and shipping profits from Union taxation would automatically result in their exemption from provincial taxes upon income or profit. However, after the Agreement had come into effect, the South African authorities were advised that this construction could not be upheld. It has subsequently been agreed, I am glad to say, that the shipping and air exemptions should be specifically ex tended to the new provincial taxes, which was the original intention of everybody.
The second Amendment made by the Protocol will have general agreement. It is to include the new provision for exemption of payments made for the benefit of visiting students and business apprentices. A provision of that kind is included in almost all our other Double Taxation Agreements and it is based on an article in the Model Convention drawn up by a Committee of the League of Nations. The Protocol is to have effect from the fiscal year 1948–49, which was the year in which the Union adopted the basis for the taxation of shipping profits.
The other Order, somewhat similarly, corrects an unexpected result of the Agreement that was made in October, 1946, to deal with double taxation in respect of estate duty. A curious anomaly, if one can call it that, has emerged, and an Agreement has been

signed with the Union Government to amend the 1946 Agreement. It was signed on 22nd December last. This draft Order was laid before the House on 15th February. Unless the House wishes it, I will not go into great detail about this Order. The matter is highly technical, but I would be very glad, if I were pressed, to give further information.
It was found that the 1946 Agreement was operating in certain cases to make chargeable to Estate Duty in one country property which, had there been no Double Taxation Agreement at all, would not have been taxable in that country. This was certainly not foreseen by anybody, and seems to be an undesirable result. Double Taxation Agreements are usually designed to avoid excessive taxation falling in two places at once and to relieve a burden, but not to give either country a special advantage.
There are certain cases where the endeavour to carry out that laudable object was imposing a charge to duty in one country for assets which would not have been otherwise liable there. This amending agreement provides, in effect, that, in relation to duties accruing on or after 1st January, 1952, the code of rules in the 1946 Agreement shall not be applied where the effect of applying it would be, in either country, to charge to duty property which, apart from the 1946 code, would be outside the charge of the country in question. It is a perfectly sensible provision and has been introduced to meet a case which was quite unforeseeable when the 1946 Agreement was made.
Perhaps I should explain that the date, 1st January, 1952, was chosen because that was the nearest round date to that on which it was decided to give the Union Government the substance of what they were asking in this matter. It was agreed between the two Governments that that should be the appropriate date after which estates of persons who died should come under the new Agreement. The matter is technical, but I trust I have explained it to the satisfaction of the House. If any hon. Member presses me further I will endeavour to give more complete information.

7.46 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: As I understand, these two Orders extend the taxation exemption applied in both


countries. They presumably involve a certain loss of revenue to the Exchequers of each country. Would the Financial Secretary say whether the United Kingdom Exchequer loses revenue as the result of this Order, and approximately how much per year it will be?

Mr. Brooke: I should say that under the second of these Orders the United Kingdom might lose a small amount of revenue, but the amount would be negligible. It is difficult to say how much. The first Agreement is beneficial to us, so I do not think there will be much loss to us under it.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (South Africa) Order, 1955, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 25th January.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Estate Duty) (South Africa) Order, 1955, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 15th February.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

CONSOLIDATION, &c, BILLS

Resolved,

So much of the Lords Message [3rd March] as relates to the appointment of a Committee on Consolidation Bills, Statute Law Revision Bills and Bills presented under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, to be considered forthwith.—[Sir C. Drewe.]

So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.

Select Committee of Six Members appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords to consider all Consolidation Bills, Statute Law Revision Bills and Bills presented under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, together with the Memoranda laid and any representations made with respect thereto under the Act, in the present Session:

Mr. Philip Bell, Mr. Forman, Mr. Janner, Sir Hugh Linstead, Mr. Niall Macpherson, and Mr. Oliver:

Power to send for persons, papers and records; and to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House:

Three to be the Quorum.—[Sir C. Drewe.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them with such of the said Orders as are necessary to be communicated to their Lordships.

IMMINGHAM RAILWAY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith.]

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Osborne: I wish to raise a matter which affects my constituency to a very considerable extent. If I can get a satisfactory answer from the Minister it will compensate me in some degree for the vast open spaces to which I am compelled to talk tonight. It would surprise our constituents if they knew how, in the Mother of Parliaments, matters which vitally affect themselves seem to pass with very little interest.
My questions relate to the Immingham—Grimsby Electric Railway. In the last year or so I have received many com plaints from my constituents as to its working. This railway was built before 1914. It is interesting to remember that it was built to connect the Port of Grimsby with the new Port of Immingham, and to note how conditions have changed since those days. The Port of Immingham was built largely so that we could export coal to the Baltic areas that was being produced in Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire. Today, it is being used for the import of coal, largely from America. It is astonishing how things have changed since this little port was first conceived and since this tiny railway was laid down. It was laid down to bring labour from Grimsby, where labour was plentiful, to what was then only a riverside village where a great port had been built.
Now the railway is obsolete, inefficient and dangerous. The track and carriages are forty years old. They are not merely antiquated, but they look like Heath Robinson inventions that have been neglected. I ask my hon. Friend, on behalf


of my constituents, who are compelled to use this rickety, rackety affair, either to scrap it or to bring it up to date.
The track is only about six miles long, and 80 per cent, of it consists of a single track with a series of loops. However, it takes 25 minutes to journey along those six miles, and that is far too slow for modern times. The extraordinary thing is that if the electric trams were to be run any faster they would roll off the track. They were not built for the job. In the last twenty or thirty years this rail way has been so neglected as to have be come a danger to those who use it, and that is why I appeal to my hon. Friend either to scrap it or to mend it.
The total carrying capacity of all the trams is not more than 800 or 900 per sons, and yet at the peak hours in the morning and, at night, between 2,000 and 3,000 people, mostly male workers, want to get from Immingham to Grimsby, or the other way. So it will be seen from these figures alone that this little old rail way, which may have satisfied the local needs in 1912 when it was built, is no longer adequate. I would remind my hon. Friend that in the village of Immingham, which is in my constituency, there are about 2,500 people who would like to be able to travel easily between the village and the town.
My plea is emphasised by the fact that between Immingham and Grimsby there is no direct road. The people who want to go by road have to take a twisty, in-and-out sort of way, and have to travel 11 miles, whereas the two places are only five miles apart, and I know from my personal experience, at General Elections, for instance, that to go about from village to village by that road is highly dangerous, especially if there is a little fog. For many years there has been an argument about the building of a direct road.
The urgency of this problem has been made all the greater because, since the end of the war, on those five miles of the Humber bank, there has been developed a new and important industrial site. As the years go by that industrial site will grow and compare with the great industrial areas of London, Liverpool, or Clyde-side. Already, five or six great chemical companies have built on the site modern factories employing hundreds of men.
Although some of the workpeople come from the villages round about, most of

them come from Grimsby and Cleethorpes at either end of this Heath Robinson railway, and the building of those factories has made a new problem for this little old railway. The factories tend to open and close all at the same hour, so there is a peak rush hour with which the little railway is quite unable to cope. Thanks to its re-equipment, which, we hope, will be carried even farther, the Port of Immingham itself has grown in importance. About 1,200 or 1,300 British Transport employees travel along this rail way daily in consequence.
Even if this little railway were as good as it was when it was established in 1912 it would still be totally inadequate to deal with the increased burden that has been put upon it. It is a danger to ride on it at times. I am told that at the peak hours the little coaches are packed to suffocation, and that there are far more people standing in them than ought to stand in them. Some years ago half a dozen extra coaches were purchased to help to solve the problem of the rush hours, but they were "throw-outs" from Gateshead, and were not built for this track; and when the wind is blowing fiercely from the sea, it becomes quite an adventure to travel in them.
Therefore, a temptation has grown, naturally enough, among the workers who use that railway, and who are employed in some of the new factories. The temptation is to go to work a little late, and to get away a little early, with the object of getting a place on a tram. Consequently, the private companies that are providing good jobs and good wages in the district, jobs and wages I very much want to be retained for my constituents, have had themselves to organise transport, by private buses, cars and taxis, to carry their people, especially their experienced staff, from the rather isolated places to the town. They have had to do so to keep their employees.
The present track and facilities are utterly inadequate, and the position will get worse—very much worse. The latest great corporation to start building in this area is Courtaulds, which has started building a huge factory on 500 acres and which will employ a great many people. There are two or three other companies that are considering building in that area. Unless something is done this railway will break down completely under sheer


weight of numbers. I ask my hon. Friend what he can do about it.
The long-term policy for him is this. He has either to agree to spend a lot of money in building a direct road, which may cost many millions, and which, I think, would be the ideal solution because it would provide the workpeople with modern buses and generally much better transport facilities; or he has to spend some money in putting down a double track on the railway, and on putting on better coaches and providing a better system altogether for the increasing number of people who want to use it.
In my constituency and in the Grimsby area we feel that this is part of a bigger problem. There are people who feel that we are, as it were, the poor relations in the transport family. We have heard of millions of money being spent north of the Humber on re-equipment. We wish good luck to Hull, but we feel at times a little envious. We read of millions being spent on the docklands of London, Liverpool, and the Clyde, but, in our part of the country, we feel that we have been neglected. I should like my hon. Friend to make a note of this and to see what can be done to help both ports. We feel we have not had our fair share of the good things going by way of capital equipment and capital expenditure.
I have discussed this matter with the local government representatives, and I am told that the question of the direct road has been discussed with successive Ministries of Transport since 1923. Thirty-two years is a long time to wait for a favourable answer, and I do not want my hon. Friend to tell me that the matter is under active consideration. I would like a decision, and I would like it in three months. I think three months, after waiting for 32 years, is fair.
At one time there was disagreement among the three local authorities concerned about the problem of building the new direct road. The Lindsey County Council, the Grimsby Rural District Council, through whose area the road must run, and the Grimsby Borough Council, who are much affected by it, did not always see eye to eye as to what should be done, but I understand that they have now come to a large measure of agreement, and I believe that before long a deputation, representing the three

local authorities, will be calling upon the Minister of Transport.
When that deputation arrives 1 would like the Minister to give a straight, un equivocal answer. If he can afford the money to build the direct road, I want him to say so. I want him to find the money so that a start may be made straightaway. It is no good the Minister saying that he agrees that a road should be built, and then finding, as they say in Yorkshire, that he has got no "brass" to do it. The Minister must find the money. If, on the other hand, he says "No, we cannot see our way to doing this. There are far too many calls upon the money and you will have to wait," obviously he must do something to put this tiny railway in proper working order.
Unless there is better transport, this wonderful industrial site will not be developed as it ought to be. I do not like to say this, but it looks as though the fishing industry in the Grimsby area will not be as important to the area in the future as it has been in the past. Therefore, unless the Grimsby area is to become a semi-depressed area, we must encourage new industries to go there.
The place for them to go is on this extraordinarily fine site south of the Humber between Immingham and Grimsby, but there is no way to get to this place without going through three or four villages and winding in and out like a drunken man might do on a Saturday night. If it is to be developed as it should be, then we have got to have either a better electric railway or a new road.
I beg of my hon. Friend to do what he can to help us, because we have waited long enough. We believe that we have not had a fair share of the good things which have gone to the port areas since the end of the war. I beg of him not to think that we are too small as com pared with the other great port areas, because the day may come when Immingham will be wanted very much for strategic purposes. Many people say that this is the finest deep sea port on the east coast. It is available to big vessels at all tides. But it is no good having a first-class port there, even with the new equipment which we have been promised, unless there is access to and from that port.
Therefore, on behalf of my constituents who are keenly affected by this matter, I beg my hon. Friend to promise that an answer will be given one way or the other about the building of the road. If the answer is "Yes," will he promise to find the money, and will he also promise that a start on building it will be made within twelve months? If, on the other hand, my hon. Friend says that he cannot find the money and cannot make these promises, I beg him to do something to improve the transport for the sake of the men and women who work in that area and who, on nights like this, are some times left by the track side in the bitterly cold east winds which come in from the North Sea.

8.6 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson): I think that anyone who has listened to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) will agree that he has established his point that the communications between Grimsby and Immingham at present are not satisfactory.
Immingham I know to be a modern port, which has special advantages because of the deep water which enables even large ships to enter. I agree with my hon. Friend that although the original purpose for which it was built, the export of coal, has now unfortunately greatly declined, it is now important as a port for the importation of iron ore, timber and grain. Therefore, there is no question that Immingham is an important port, and we should naturally like there to be satisfactory communications between it and Grimsby.
Although development has taken place between Grimsby and Immingham, it is still the case that there are comparatively few houses actually at the port of Immingham, and therefore it is necessary for the vast majority of those who work in the port or in the factories which have been built in the vicinity to travel there in the morning and back home again in the evening.
My hon. Friend has raised the question whether there should be a new direct road built between Immingham and Grimsby. The existing road is a class I road, No. A. 1136. He is asking me whether I can give an undertaking that a new direct road will shortly be constructed between

those two towns. My hon. Friend, I know, will hardly suggest that a road in tended for this special purpose which he has described should be a trunk road. It would obviously be a classified road, and therefore the responsibility for taking the initiative in this matter rests with the local authorities.
It is not merely 30 years ago that this road was first discussed. It was in 1914, or more than 40 years ago. But down to the present time the two local authorities concerned have not been in agreement. The two local authorities are the Lindsey County Council and the Grimsby County Borough Council. I am glad to say that a technical meeting was held in February between the borough engineer and the county surveyor at which our divisional road engineer was present, and I under stand that at that meeting agreement was reached that the road should be mainly on the west side of the railway, except at its southern end. The technical officers have reported back to their councils, but we have heard nothing of the matter officially since then.
The Lindsey County Council has in formed us of the programme of work which it would like to undertake during the next few years, and no proposal for any road of this kind appears in that programme. I am, therefore, bound to say that I shall be surprised if we hear from the Lindsey County Council that it now desires to give that road priority over the many other road works which it regards as urgently important.
I am also bound to say that, although we should naturally give careful consideration to any scheme which the county council puts forward, there is at present so great a backlog of work to be under taken, after the passing of no fewer than 16 years with very little in the way of road works being done, that I do not think it is at all likely, to say the least of it, that if this road were proposed we could authorise it in the near future. I feel reasonably sure that we are already too deeply committed in respect of the grants available for the finance to be provided.
I would also remind my hon. Friend that the alignment of the road has not yet been decided, so far as I know. If it has been agreed upon, at any rate no preliminary work has been done on the acquisition of land, and that inevitably takes a considerable time.

Mr. Osborne: I should like to correct my hon. Friend on one point, if I may. He said that two authorities were concerned. In fact, there are three; there is also the Grimsby Rural District Council, through whose area the proposed road will have to run. I have a letter from the clerk of the rural district council, dated 3rd March, which reads:
The position at the moment as to the direct road between Immingham and Grimsby is that the County Council, the County Borough of Grimsby and this Council have all agreed in principle as to the necessity for a direct road. As soon as certain facts and data have been prepared, it is intended to meet the Minister of Transport or his representative in London.

Mr. Molson: I am very interested to hear that. All we knew was that agreement had been reached last month, but since then we have received no official information. I would point out to my hon. Friend that when it is agreed to undertake a road, it almost invariably takes two to three years before the land can be acquired and before work can be started. I should also repeat my words of caution that we are already deeply committed financially in many other schemes in the County of Lindsey.
My hon. Friend also referred to the existing electric railway. He pointed out that it is only a single-line railway, and I understand that it is almost of the nature of a tram track. It is certainly a matter for careful consideration whether it would not be cheaper, speedier and more satisfactory if this line were modernised in order to deal with the increased traffic. I do not think it is at all likely, however, that the British Transport Commission would agree to spend money upon that if there were any likelihood that at any time in the foreseeable future a road would be built which would be in direct competition with the railway.
I therefore agree with my hon. Friend that we must regard this as being a choice between alternative ways of improving the communications. There is not, and is not likely to be, any great demand for the conveyance of goods between these two seaport towns. It is a natural state of affairs in ports that the goods traffic

should be inward and outward and not along the coast. It may well be, therefore, that the modernisation of this line, with multiple-unit diesels or with electrification or in some other way, would enable this problem of passenger transportation between Immingham and Grimsby to be solved.
I am not able to say anything definite upon the subject tonight. I think that my hon. Friend has performed a most useful service both to industry and his constituents tonight. I have indicated what I believe is the case, that it is a choice between the two ways of improving communications. I will certainly make sure that the British Transport Commission is informed of what has been said by my hon. Friend. At the Ministry of Transport we shall certainly do what we can to expedite a decision on what should be done to meet what I admit to be an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Mr. Osborne: I appreciate the difficulty of my hon. Friend in not being able to give an answer tonight. Without being unfair, I hope, may I ask for an undertaking that within three months, if I come to him again, he will give me a definite answer, either about the road or the railway?

Mr. Molson: Really, that is quite impossible. I do not think that my hon. Friend has fully understood what I have said. In the case of a classified road, the initiative rests with the local authorities; in the matter of the modernisation of a railway the decision rests with the British Transport Commission. Until the Commission knows whether or not a road is likely to be built I do not feel that it would be able to come to a decision. I shall do what I can to make certain that the two different forms of transport are considered in comparison with each other, and that a decision is expedited as much as possible.

Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes past Eight o'clock.